Star Trek: Spirit
by Demo ODST
Summary: What happens when a trainee crew gets forced to take over the ship? Surprisingly, alot of good things. It's just a matter of how many rules they will break along the way. But hey, how can they complain about results, right?
1. Prologue

**So not only is this a slightly AU version of star trek online, but i actually have no idea where all this is going. i may pull some story from the game in, i may not. i will, however, be taking suggestions for themes and events to the chapters. this is nothing more than the prologue, but i hope it really piques your interest. so let me know if it does!**

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Captain Gregory Mitchell smiled as he made his way through the familiar halls of the star fleet academy. He sighed as he ran a hand through his balding grey hair, unable to stop the flood of memories every visit to the academy brought, from his instructors, to his friends, to the rules he had broken. Even memories of later in his career when he had encounter people he had been a cadet with. It sometimes overwhelmed him with how long it had been since then, and although he was only a captain, he was highly respected amongst Starfleet, being made the captain who took the top of the class from the academy out on their first missions several of those people had already become admirals, his near decade long 'retirement' from the life of a mainstream captain having it's own plethora of memories along with it. he eventually found the office he was looking for, down the hall he was currently in. a man had just left it, who wasn't wearing any kind of regulation uniform. instead, he was wearing a pair of cargo pants, a black t-shirt with some faded logo or another on it, and a soft mesh tactical belt, covered in pouches. Hanging off the belt, was a holster, holding a small phaser pistol, bigger and more weapon like than the issued phasers. He smirked, realizing who the man was, and that he was actually one of the students at the academy. And he was known for ignoring regulations that he deemed pointless. A couple of students seemed to have been waiting for him, walking away from the captain when he did so. The captain picked up his pace and stepped into the office the female feline like secretary waving cheerily at him as he stepped past, politely saying good morning to the woman before he stepped inside. The office was fairly large, with a single cluttered desk and several cabinets. It was also utilitarian to the extreme, every single object and sheet of paper in the office having a use and need to be there for the day to day running of the academy. Behind the desk, in his clearly less than comfortable arm chair, sat Admiral Kenneth Bates, a long time friend and partner in crime for the aging captain. His once dirty blonde hair had turned almost white, but at least he wasn't losing it like the captain's once brown. His deep blue eyes still had that hidden spark of warmth and craving for adventure in them, even after the near five decades since their academy days.

"Hey Greg. Ready for the latest greenies?" he smirked before lowering himself into one of the seats, his bones aching in protest.

"Not at all! Damned kids seem younger every year!" the admiral smirked, sliding some of his paperwork aside.

"No, you just get older every year. Seen the roster yet?" he nodded, having reviewed the roster several times already, combing over every cadet viable for the intense training he put his ship through. He even went as far as looking into files not submitted to him that would occasionally catch his eye.

"Of course. Seem as capable as every year." The roster consisted of nearly eighty cadets who would take positions on his ship, his small permanent crew simple watching them and coaching them when necessary on the day to day running of the ship, as well as overseeing how they act in the emergency drills they get put through. This was a sort of final test that only one in nearly twenty thousand Starfleet cadets would get the chance for. All of the other cadets from across federation space would be sent to actually starships at this stage in their training, interning on them for a couple more months before getting their final stationings.

"Any changes you want to make? And you never sent me the file on leader assignments." The captain smirked, pulling a data crystal out and setting it on the desk.

"You know I always bring that in person." The Admiral smirked, grabbing the crystal and looking it over, as if he was trying to read it with just his eyes.

"I can always hope to not see your crotchedy ass in here again. So, what lucky sucker is being made first officer?"

"Cadet Spencer Armstrong. He seems to fit my requirements." The admiral chuckled, rolling his eyes.

"Another joking rule breaker? God, I hope he doesn't captain a ship one day." The captain raised an eyebrow, smiling himself. "At least he has a saving grace. He spends a lot of free time helping other students. Runs a tutoring class over the weekends for anyone who wants it. when he's not planning his next prank."

"And my head security officer, Cadet Matthew Hawkins." The admiral froze at that, his eyes narrowing.

"Are you stupid? That kid is only still in this academy by the skin of his teeth. Do you know how many regulations he has broken since he got here?" the captain nodded, defiantly glaring at his friend.

"I am well aware. I also am aware of his….. special circumstances."

"The kid is failing, plain and simple. I've even forced him to take tutoring lessons with Cadet Armstrong. If my word was final, he would have been kicked out by now!" the captain smiled, again, fully aware of the kid's record.

"His scores in holodeck exercises are outstanding, especially in tactical scenarios, and he can make a shuttle craft or fighter dance. His efficiency and survival abilities are unrivaled."

"And his Phaser scores are mediocre at best!" the captain's glare softened as he smiled.

"That never stopped me from being good in a fire fight, now did it?" the admiral sighed and shrugged, his attitude shifting again.

"Yeah, you're right there. But, by regulation, the best I can let you do is make him a team leader for one of your security teams. No better." He nodded, accepting that. He already had a back up in mind anyway.

"Then I want Cadet Jenifer Kei. She's smart, resourceful, and seems to score well on her exercises, as well as her classwork. And her marksmanship is unparalleled." The admiral nodded enthusiastically.

"I was hoping you would put her in a high position. Unlike Armstrong, Cadet Kei cares about others _and_ regulations Any others you want?"

"yeah, Cadet James Washington. I think you know." The captain smiled as the admiral instantly let his face fall into his hands, groaning.

"Don't tell me….. you want him flying?" he simply continued to grin at the admiral, eliciting another grown from the man. "Great. Don't blame me when he tears holes in the hull of the _Gallant_."

"One more that I specifically want. Cadet T'vrell. I hear her name has nearly become synonymous with communications and diplomacy?" the admiral's expression instantly changed into a grin.

"I never thought I would say this, but I like that Vulcan! granted, she's a quarter human, but where most Vulcans and their 'logic' is mind numbingly stale, she has a tongue as sharp as her looks. You'd never expect her to be as quick witted as she is, and I've gotten so used to expecting Vulcan's to never tell jokes and such, but she does. Just don't ask her why, she'll go so deep into psychology that your brain will break several times. She is insanely good at her job." Captain Mitchell just smiled and chuckled, having known how irritated the admiral had gotten with several different Vulcans over the years.

"Well, I guess I have myself a crew now, don't i?" the admiral smirked, plugging in the data crystal and making the necessary changes to the roster, changing the head security officer before filling all of the empty slots for positions. Once he was done, he put his credentials to the file and sent it up his own chain of command, making it the official roster for the training cruise.

"That you do. I'll send out the appropriate messages for you to meet up with all of your new heads and bridge crew, as usual." The captain stood, smiling as he started to move for the door.

"Well, see you around then Ken." The admiral waved to him as he left the room, already thinking of his small disused office.


	2. Final Day

**so yes, i know, i usual dont do too much with pre established friendships and such, but i figured i would mix things up a bit. i'm hoping these characters come off the way i want them too, and all have their own likable qualities.**

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Cadet Spencer Armstrong took a deep breath of the fresh air in the academy's court yard, unable to stop smiling. Today had no tests, no classes, no lessons. Just a single formation at eleven where all four thousand of the cadets at the academy in San Francisco would be told their first assignments, and after that, they would have the day off until the next morning. It was the first day of his new life, as far as he was concerned. He knew that almost the entire student body was as excited as he was, watching as the students criss crossed around him. Third semester students were required to wear grey uniforms, the color representing their branch being a jagged line across the chest of the uniforms. Red for tactical branch, yellow for ship operations, blue for sciences. The other cadets in the lower years wore a solid color uniform matching their branch, causing the final semester cadets to easily stand out. Of course, there was one cadet who had stood out for all three of the years he had been there, wearing the actual uniform on only two occasions, and still carrying a holster and weapon for both of those ceremonies. That particular cadet, was straight ahead of Armstrong, sitting on a park bench in his cargo pants and t-shirt, lounging there as he fingered the phase disrupter he carried. Armstrong grinned, starting to make his way over when he noticed the female cadet talking to him, her small stature and dark brown long hair unmistakable to him, even at this distance. She was of Japanese descent, but her family had lived in the America's for several generations, so although most of her build was Asian, she had a few touches of more European or American qualities, such as the brown hair, and more normal eye shape. But her features were still softer and more rounded then most, as well as her darker almond colored skin. As he got closer, he could hear what she was saying to her fellow cadet on the bench.

"-ed to stop doing things like this Hawk! You are going to get yourself kicked out of the academy!" the brown haired blue eyed cadet simply shrugged at her, seeming to be paying very little attention to her. As far as Spencer knew, he had originally been born in texas, a region named that centuries ago, before most of the world's countries collapsed. He was of average height, and although he wasn't big by any means, he was incredibly fit.

"Hey Kei, relax! He made it, now it's on to the fleet!" Kei whipped around so fast, her hair slashed through the air like daggers, her normally comforting dark brown eyes seeming to blaze in fury.

"We aren't done yet Spence! All because we get ship assignments today doesn't mean we aren't cadets anymore! And at the rate he's going, he'll end up in the ship's brig rather than on a security team!" all three of them had chosen the tactical branch when the enlisted, Spencer aiming for space combat tactics. Jenifer Kei had always leaned for a security position, liking the thought of protecting people. Matthew Hawkins, or Hawk as Spencer had taken to calling him, seemed to want to be on the frontlines of any engagement, and not really being very enthusiastic about commanding a ship for that matter. He always seemed like he wanted to be in direct control of the weapons and maneuvering, his flight skills in a fighter or shuttle far outstripping his command abilities. Whereas Kei was an incredible marksmen, not only scoring perfect on nearly every phaser range they ran, but generally hitting dead center of every target every time. But, although she could shoot really well, her scores tended to drop during firefights, tending to lose control of her team very quickly. Thankfully, most of the team sims she had been through, either Hawk or himself had been there to take over leading the team, Hawk definitely being the best ground fighter of the three, even if he wasn't the best shot.

"So Hawk, what did you do this time?" he barely glanced at him as he responded, actually speaking now.

"rigged a cherry bomb in a bathroom to go off when somebody flushed the toilet. Didn't hurt anyone, but made a good mess." Spencer sniggered, trying to fight down laughter. Although when he first got to the academy, joining the class several weeks into the program, he had been completely locked off to everyone, barely even speaking to the instructors. When his grades started to drop, Admiral Bates, the man in charge of the entire academy, had asked Spencer to tutor him. Which in turn, caused Spencer to open up an open study session and tutoring program every Saturday, that he and the other top class members ran. Over that time, he had managed to get the older student to relax a bit, and had learned that he had a larger devious streak than the self-proclaimed prank master himself. Naturally, even though he still didn't speak much, the two had become very close friends. It still made spencer both chuckle and shudder at the first few months Hawk had spent at the academy. He always wore a camouflaged uniform and combat vest, carrying both a phase disrupter pistol, and a fully automatic phase disruptor rifle on his chest. Although, spencer had always wondered why he had gotten away with doing that, but Hawk rarely spoke of himself beyond classwork and the pranks he would pull.

"Nice! What's the punishment?" Hawkins actually grinned, finally leaving his weapon untouched for a second.

"None, they couldn't prove it was me, the Admiral just had a few stern words about not using the replicators to make cherry bombs again." They both shared a chuckle, Kei cutting them off.

"You really need to stop these stupid pranks! What if you had made the bomb too strong?! What if somebody got hurt!? There are rules for a reason Matt?!" he glanced at her for a second before shrugging. She screamed to herself for a second, pressing her hands to her temples. Spencer couldn't help but chuckle at how cute she got when she was angry. "And how come you never speak to me!? Come on Matt!?" Spencer noticed the sudden spike of guilt and sadness that slipped across Matt's face. Kei had a way of making people feel guilty about things, but she seemed extra talented at doing it to Hawk.

"That's not true smalls. You know that." She seemed to deflate for half a second, just before the anger surged forth again as she seemed to realize what he had called her.

"Stop calling me Smalls! I have a name you jerk!" Matt rolled his eyes as spencer responded for him, the three of them having been over this several times.

"Nope, never. You will always be smalls to us, Smalls." She groaned, letting her face fall into one of her hands.

"Cadet Matthew Hawkins!" the electronically amplified voice rang across the courtyard, Spencer's head instantly snapping to the source. One of their instructors had a microphone and a datapad in his hands.

"Great, I was hoping instructor Davis wouldn't be up yet this morning." Spencer raised an eyebrow at him as he stood stretching. "What? I just put plastic wrap on the other side of his door." He gave a quick smirk to spencer before starting to move toward the instructor, Kei's voice following him.

"Really Matt!?" he just non-chalantly waved back at them, disappearing into the crowd. "he really needs to stop before he gets himself into some real trouble!" Spencer chuckled at her half concerned, half angry expression.

"Wait until you discover what we did to you and T's room." Her eyes seemed to expand to three times their normal size as she turned on him.

"What did you do now!?" he just smiled and chuckled, not wanting to spoil the surprise. Little did she know, T, as Spencer always referred to her Vulcan roommate, T'Vrell, had let it slip that it was Kei's birthday today, so they had convinced the Vulcan to get her out of the room early that morning. Even with spending several years at the academy together, they were still learning things about each other that they either hadn't bothered learning, or simply never had time too.

"Oh, you'll see. Just don't go to your room without us, we want to see your face!" he stuck his tongue out at her, earning himself a pained grown from the smaller girl.

"Great! I'm going to go now so you don't get the satisfaction!" she started to move when the instructors voice returned.

"Cadet Jenifer Kei!" she gave Spencer a hurt and confused expression.

"Don't tell me you roped me into one of you two's crazy pranks!" Spencer didn't respond, too confused himself.

"Not that I'm aware of. I guess you better go see whats up." She sighed and moved off into the crowd. A voice behind him made spencer jump, spinning around almost instantly.

"And what did you two do to her this time?" the female voice was incredibly calm and even, belonging to none other than T'Vrell. He eyed the Vulcan suspiciously for a second, knowing she had some plan or another. She always had a plan. But that line of thought was broken as his eyes found themselves admiring her gorgeous body. She was only a little shorter than him, with very light, almost pale skin, clashing spectacularly with her very angular features and long black hair, which she always had perfectly styled. Her piercing green eyes seemed to have the intensity of an exploding star, her pointed ears matching up with her other sharp features. Her uniform had blue trim on it, marking her as a member of the science branch, her specialty being communications. She also wore a skirt and grey leggings, instead of pants.

"Uh… nothing yet. Just told her we did something to you two's room is all." She rose an eyebrow at him, clearly expecting more. "I didn't tell her what!"

"Ah, I see then. You want to see how she reacts when she sees it, don't you?" he nodded proudly to the Vulcan, about to speak again when the instructor's voice rang out again.

"Cadet T'vrell!" she was instantly gone, leaving Spencer standing there absolutely confused, and totally alone. _What the hell is going on?_ His thought stopped as he saw one of their other class mates, Rei Morikawa. Although, by his naming conventions, it was supposed to be said Morikawa Rei, being born on the island of japan, across an ocean from here. He was a lightly built, wiry person, being a member of the tactical branch as well. He aimed around ships weapons, but he mopped the ring in hand to hand combat. He also had a tendency to sneak up on people by total accident. Spencer was just about to start moving toward him as another name was called, stopping him. "Cadet Rei Morikawa!" he groaned, seeing his friend moving off toward the instructor, where it seemed that all his friends were being called over to. He sighed as several more names he recognized were called until one caught his full attention. "Cadet Spencer Armstrong!"

()

Jenifer Kei followed along behind the other's, completely confused as to what was going on. It seemed they had picked the top members of the class, with the exception of Hawkins, who was well known as being the bottom of the class, at least academically. Most of them hadn't spoken a word, the only one seemingly unaffected being T'vrell, who glanced back at the small girl behind her and gave her a comforting smile. Kei returned it as she continued to try to puzzle out what was going on when the instructor told them to halt, sitting them down in chairs lining either side of the hall in a specific order. Spencer was at the other end from her, Hawk on the end next to her. she glanced at him, a small pang of pity hitting her, just like every time she saw him. She had overheard a couple of months ago why he was allowed to carry a weapon with him, and it honestly hurt her, knowing why. He was suffering from severe post traumatic stress disorder, the weapon on his side being a form of comfort for him. She hadn't caught what had caused this in him, but having seen his softer side on a few occasions, and knowing how hard he tried to protect others in the simulations, going as far as throwing himself between team mates and weapons fire, it was a painful thought to her that he was suffering, even as he sat there. She honestly wanted to ask what had happened to him, wanting to help and out of curiosity, but she also felt she shouldn't, just because the memories were likely excruciating to him, something she knew all too much about. A grey haired balding man suddenly stepped out of an office beside where Spencer was sitting, breaking her thoughts. Half his face was scarred from some sort of thermal injury, likely an explosion. He was well built, even for his obvious age, a rank insignia on his chest marking him as a captain. He simply motioned for Spencer to follow him into the office, most of the group exchanging confused words. Her eyes bounced between the others for a bit, dropping to her uniform. she picked a piece of lint off her top, wishing for the millionth time that her uniform looked even half as good as T'Vrell's. she had no idea how the Vulcan managed to keep it perfectly smooth, unwrinkled, and managed to show off her stunning body through it. Before long, her eyes drifted back to Matt beside her, noticing the sad expression he had when he thought no one was looking. He had short, very well cut hair, his bangs being a little longer than the rest, but only by a little, still standing up on it's own.

"Um, Matt?" he nearly launched himself out of his seat, earning him small chuckle from Kei. His eyes locked with hers, showing that he was paying attention. "What did you and Spence do to my room?" he gulped several times, clearly debating exactly what to say.

"You'll see. Just be sure to bring us when you go. We want to be there." She eyed him suspiciously, something in his voice making it out as if it wasn't some kind of prank.

"It wouldn't happen to have something to do with what day it is, does it?" he raised an eyebrow at her, smirking.

"And what would today have to do with anything? Well, other than the whole ship assignment crap." She rolled her eyes at him. The only times he really talked to her was when she was legitimately upset, or when he was trying to hide something. Both of which being more common than she would have liked.

"You know don't you?" he looked around the area, seeming completely baffled.

"Uh, know what?" she rolled her eyes again, chuckling to herself. _Yup, they know, damn it T! you weren't supposed to tell anyone that my birthday is today!_

"My birthday." She smiled in triumph as he seemed to freeze in place, knowing she had scored a victory over him. He always froze when you discovered what he was hiding.

"uh…. What?" she just chuckled and looked away, grinning from ear to ear and genuinely curious what they had done. Until she realized that Spencer's idea of a birthday party was some prank or another. Her face fell as she let her chin rest on her hand.

"Great, Spencer was in charge, wasn't he?" she hadn't realized how depressed her voice was until she noticed Matt's face beside her, all pretense of confusion falling away.

"No. he wasn't. just…. Um, don't let him know that you know we know. He actually worked really hard on doing something nice. Even if I had to twist his arm a bit to not do a prank of some sort." She smiled to him, a look of relief crossing his face. She never understood why, but he seemed to really hate hurting people's feelings. Or, at least, he didn't seem to like hurting her feelings. Or Spencer's for that matter. As she thought about it, she realized that they were his only two friends. He never actually spoke to anyone else. She suddenly felt a pang of guilt and sadness, realizing that she had never noticed how alone he must have been. "Uh, Jen, you okay?" she glanced at him, seeing the worried look in his eyes. No one else called her Jen, ever.

"Oh, yeah, just off in my own little world. You know how I get sometimes." She gave him a smile, to which he seemed to relax, going back to just glancing around, seeming to not care. She liked her small moments with him like this. They felt so different from anything she had with anyone else, almost like having a sibling or something else with her. Suddenly, the door opened and Spencer came striding out. He was slightly taller than average, with a shock of mid length scraggily brown hair that went whatever direction it wanted to at any given time. It gave him a slightly more youthful look, and kinda fit his adventurous personality. He had a slim build, well muscled, but attractively so. Where Matt's build had a sense of hidden power to it, he simply looked like you would imagine the romantic hero in a story to look like, his dark green eye's filled with a sort of mirth at all times. He was grinning like an idiot right now as moved down the hall, stopping by the two of them. "So who was that?" he smirked and waved her question off, leaning down to whisper something into Matt's ear. They both sniggered as she started tapping her foot, hating it when they left her out of the loop. "Spencer…." He rolled his eye's at her as he straightened up.

"No mother, none of us are in any kind of trouble. You'll find out in a bit. Meet you in the cafeteria when you two are done." Matt just curtly nodded, Kei rolling her eye's at Spencer's joke. Spencer and Matt bumped fists before spencer darted off down the hall, leaving the two of them to more than likely gorge himself on as much food as he could stuff into his mouth. Kei lost track of time, simply looking around and not paying attention as each of the students before them went nervously into the office, only to leave grinning like idiots. Even T'vrell came out looking as close to excited as she ever got. Kei sub consciously bit her lip as the captain waved her up, standing and moving into the small office. It had a single desk with a model ship on it, an ancient NX class starship, one of Star Fleet's first vessels. The entire room had a disused feel to it, like no one ever really used it.

"Please, sit cadet." She nodded and sat down, straightening her uniform nervously. "I am Captain Mitchell of the U.S.S. Gallant." Her mouth dropped open as he spoke, having never seen the captain of the Gallant. The Gallant was a special ship, one of the first ever deployed by Starfleet, and the longest serving single starship in the entire fleet. It had been updated and upgraded time and time again over it's multi century career, and had been being used as a training ship for the most talented of the cadets at the academy for the past fifty years.

"I… it….. it's a pleasure to meet you sir." He smirked, rolling his eyes as he stood behind his desk.

"Cadet Kei, I have pulled you aside to inform you that your training ship will be the NX O' seven Gallant. You are going to be holding one of the command positions on the vessel, specifically, as the head of security. Congratulations Cadet." He extended his hand to her from across the desk, Kei, tenitively shaking it.

"Thank you sir! I wont let you down!" he smirked before moving to sit down, groaning with the effort of the simple task took.

"Don't let yourself down. You do yourself proud and you will do me proud." She nodded, standing and moving for the door, so excited that all of her military bearing was evaporating.

"Cadet, I never said you were dismissed." She froze instantly panicking. She turned around slowly to find herself staring into the captain's laughter filled brown eyes. "Tell Cadet Hawkins to come on in. and just so you know. You weren't my first pick for head of security." Her heart fell at his words, her elation at knowing she was being put on a fast tracked career all but dead. "But I expect that you will be doing great things for Star Fleet. No matter what you see, no matter what happens, never lose your drive. Dismissed." She nodded and saluted, a sort of determination building in her chest. He returned it and she left the room, seeing Matt sitting completely by himself, exactly where she had left him.

"Matt, go on in. see you in a bit!" she tried to sound cheery for him as she passed, even more curious as to why he was here now. she happily sighed as she disappeared into the academy, heading off to get breakfast before the official ceremony.

* * *

Cadet T'Vrell watched curiously as Spencer stuffed his face with eggs, bacon, and pork patties, seeming to be capable of eating nonstop. She raised an eyebrow at him before she spoke, her voice causing him to cringe a little, as it usually did.

"If you continue eating so fast, you are going to have an upset stomach." He rolled his eyes and shrugged, barely stopping to speak.

"Why do you always nag me about things T? I swear, you make it your life's goal." He almost instantly went back to eating.

"if you would stop doing stupid things, I would stop pointing them out." He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Since when did Vulcans describe things as stupid?"

"My apologies, I was attempting to use terminology to convey my point that your meager mind might actually have the capability to comprehend, in hopes that some of it's logic may be communicated with you." He groaned, setting his fork down.

"Great, and now the walking computer is insulting me, just how I wanted to spend my lunch." She smirked, unable to fully stop herself.

"And yet, using derogatory statements against you has gotten you to slow down your consumption of your food, and thus more than likely prevent you from whining and complaining during the ceremony like you usually do in class. It can get quite distracting." He groaned again, covering his face with his hands.

"T, leave him alone! You don't need to torture him all the time." Kei had just arrived, dropping her own more lightly loaded tray of food beside T'vrell's.

"It wouldn't be logica-" Kei cut her off as she gently scooped up her eggs with her fork.

"T, we talked about this. No using Spence as a test subject for your little experiments." she let a saddened expression slip onto her face as Kei started on her food.

"His reactions are quite A-typical and interesting though. It would be prudent to gather as much in-" Kei swallowed her food and cut T'vrell off as soon as she could.

"T. stop. And quit trying to use false emotions on us. We all know Vulcans don't have emotions." Kei resumed eating again, Spencer across from them seeming to breathe a sigh of relief.

"On the contrary, we simply choose to control our emotions, instead of letting them drive us." Kei rolled her eyes at T'Vrell, a signal T'Vrell had learned generally meant she was being ignored.

"So Spence, what did the captain say to you?" he quickly swallowed his food and grinned.

"I'm being made the first officer on the Gallant!" Kei groaned and shook her head at him.

"Great. Now I'm never going to hear the end of it." he chuckled, shoving another fork full of eggs into his mouth, speaking around the food.

"Oh? Sov 'vat div he sayv to yov?"

"Cadet Armstrong, not only is it socially polite to swallow one's food before you try to partake in conversation, but it tends to increase you're already low odds of being understood." Kei rolled her eye's at T'Vrell, almost ignoring her statement entirely.

"And there she goes again. I swear, you enjoy tormenting the poor guy. Told me to never lose my drive and that I was going to be his head of security. What about you T?" the Vulcan smiled gently, knowing it was appropriate to show at least some pride in being the top of her class.

"Captain Mitchell has seen fit to place me as the communications officer for the U.S.S. Gallant." She received a pat on the back from Kei, the smaller woman beaming at her.

"That's great T! I guess we'll being seeing a lot of each other right?" Spence nodded, T'Vrell already speaking.

"Yes, our jobs are heavily intertwined." Spencer suddenly went quiet, looking lost in thought.

"If you are head of security, what do you thing Hawk is? I mean, I cant think of any other leadership position he could take. I over heard most of the others while waiting for you guys. All of the positions I know of are taken." Kei seemed to suddenly become saddened, as if she knew something.

"Cadet Kei?" she looked at T'Vrell and sighed.

"The captain said I wasn't his first choice for head of security. Maybe he wanted Matt there and got denied?" the nervousness and shame was all too evident in Kei's voice.

"That is a possibility, but given his grades, I find it highly doubtful that he is even going to be a member of the Gallant's crew." Spencer seemed to deflate at that, Kei looking equally depressed. A tray was quietly placed next to Spencer's, the three of them glancing up to see Hawkins sitting down beside him, staring down at the plate of food.

"Hawk! What did he tell you!?" he glanced amongst them and shrugged after Spencer spoke, his gaze returning to his food.

"I'm leading up the primary tactical away team on the U.S.S. Gallant. That's it." Spencer let out a whoop that drew the entire cafeteria's attention for a second, several people rolling their eyes at him.

"That is freaking amazing! We couldn't have asked for better! All three of us, on the same ship!"

"Four, don't forget T. she is my friend after all." He waved off Kei's comment, clearly not caring much about it.

"did he say anything else to you?!" Matt just shrugged, which was his usual sign that he wasn't going to say anymore. "Okay, well, we should probably eat quickly, we only have about an hour before the formation, and we are supposed to be there what, thirty minutes early?" the group nodded, all four of them digging into their food.

* * *

Cadet Matthew Hawkins followed along behind his friends, a small smile on his face. If someone had told him three years ago that he would be friends with three of the top students in the academy, he would not have believed them. Then again, he wouldn't have believed he would have any friends, nearly making it a goal to befriend no one, never wanting to lose a friend ever again. Whether he would ever admit it, the three people a few steps ahead of him, a Vulcan woman, a small almost teenager like human girl, and the adventurous moron that was T'Vrell, Kei, and Spencer having each found a way to core out a spot in his life for them. A sigh slipped out of his mouth, hoping the three of them never had to go through anything like what he had. It had only been a few minutes since the impromptu graduation ceremony had ended, and they were all on their way to Kei and T'vrell's room, Spencer having insisted on going there, much to Kei's mock distress. She had made no sign since her and Matt's talk of knowing that they had discovered it was her birthday, still acting worried about what could be in store for her in her room. Matt just quietly followed the group, unable to stop from slipping off into his memories of just a couple of hours ago.

* * *

 _Matt slipped through the door, it making a slight hiss as it automatically slid shut behind him. The captain from earlier was already sitting behind the desk as Matt saluted, it instantly being returned._

 _"Cadet Hawkins. You're an interesting one, you know that? Go ahead and sit down." He nodded and accepted the captain's offer, letting his hand drop to the familiar grip of his weapon. "Twenty-two recorded incidents on file, seven breaking and entering, four destructions of property, six breaking of uniform regulations, three incidents of panic attacks in the halls, and two incidents of physical assault on fellow members of Starfleet. And yet, here you are." Matt just shrugged, knowing how bad his record was. A large portion of the reported incidents were from his earliest times in Starfleet, before he had been transferred to the San Francisco Academy. All three panic attacks had occurred when his doctor at the time tried to force him to not be armed, his mind more or less shutting down. He would suddenly become extremely aggressive and violent, trying to put as much distance between himself and others. One of the incidents being when a pair of security personnel had taken his weapons away, only for him to beat both of them senseless to get them back. That had been the incident that got him transferred to this academy. "to be perfectly honest, when I first saw you're record, I thought it was a joke. I thought, there is no way a kid would be this bad and not have been thrown in a jail cell. Until I read the file on your past that they attached. Born in Houston, here on earth, moved to sigma nine at the age of ten. Was on the ground during the attack five years ago. Only known survivor of New Memphis. Survived for six weeks using a stolen Orion pirate's disruptor, never been unarmed since." Matt closed his eye's, trying to shove the memories back. "Tell me, why did you join Starfleet?" Matt sighed, releasing his weapon as he spoke._

 _"I joined to get payback on the kind of bastards who killed my friends…. Who killed my…. My family. And to make sure no one ever has to go through what I went through ever again." The captain nodded, sighing as he leaned back in his chair._

 _"Your test scores prevented me from giving you the position I believe you to be right for, as the head of security on my ship. Your training scenarios show you have a keen tactical mind, albeit a bit more brutal than Starfleet usually would want. You know how to sacrifice troops to complete a mission, something most leaders in Starfleet have trouble with. And something we need. There's a war coming. I need you to help your team mates be ready for it. that's why I fought to get you in a position on my ship. As such, I want you acting as the leader for my tactical away team. You have ten people under your direct command, all fellow cadets. Give them the best crack at wining you can. Dismissed." Matt instantly stood, doing the best salute he could before moving for the door. "And Cadet? Never assault one of my crewmembers, or I will through you in the brig." Matt nodded and stepped through the door, breathing a deep sigh, unable to stop the memories from invading his mind._

* * *

"Matt! Are you even listening you moron!?" Matt was torn from his thoughts, realizing that they had arrived at T'Vrell and Kei's rroom. Spencer had given him a gentle smack on his head to get his attention, nearly earning a throat punch for the gesture. Matt closed his eyes for a second, calming his mind. _These are you're friends, they aren't aiming to hurt you._

"Sorry. Lost myself for a bit there." Spencer rolled his eyes as T'Vrell input the code for the door, Kei looking incredibly nervous. Spencer purposefully marched straight into the room, gesturing around the darkened chamber as he continued to walk deeper in, facing them.

"See? No trip wires or sensors or anything like that to trip a pra-" his voice cut off with a shout as he tripped over something toppling onto one of the beds. Kei marched in, rolling her eyes at Spencer before flicking the lights on. The command to activate the lights triggered a subroutine Matt and Spencer had created, activating several holo-projectors to create neon writing in the air, all reading as happy birthday Jenifer. Simultaneously, the room's replicator produced a cake, which Matt stepped past the sprawled form of spencer to retrieve, setting it on the table in the room, the replicator producing several plates and utensils for them to use as well. The cake already had candles on it and lit, twenty one of them all told. Kei was looking between the cake and the holo-projectors, which were now blasting fake confetti into the air, a soft wow being mouthed. Little did he know, she had never expected them to actually try to do something nice for her, and as simple as it was, clearly showed a lot of effort put in, the programming alone having taken hours from their sleep over the past couple days, much less hacking into the room's system and linking it all to run off the lights turning on.

"You really didn't do a prank!?" her voice was shocked as she spoke to Spencer, who was untangling himself from the blanket of the bed he had tripped over.

"Well, I had wanted to make the cake explode or something when you blew the candles out, but Hawk forced me not to." He smiled sheepishly, blazing bright red. As little as he wanted to admit it, it had taken hardly any convincing at all on Matt's part to keep him from playing a prank on her. she stepped over to him, giving him a light hug, which he instantly returned. As soon as she let go, she moved over to Matt, throwing her arms around him and hugging him for considerable longer. He fought the urge to shove her off, not much liking being touch, and gently wrapped his arms around her as she whispered up into his ear.

"Thanks for not letting him prank me!" Matt just nodded gentle, relaxing more than he thought he could've for a second, just before she let go. And with in minutes, they were gathered around the table, the two males giving her cheer as she blew the candles out, Matt's half hearted, and Spencer seeming to be trying to make up for both Matt's and T'Vrell's short comings cheer wise. the next hour or so seemed to fly by as they enjoyed the cake, Matt just listening as they all joked and wondered what life was about to be like for them.

"Why don't we all go to that club in downtown? Uh, _Typhoon_ or whatever it's called." The table all stared at Matt shocked, he himself not really sure why he had spoken up.

"I, yeah, lets go! It's our last night on earth for a while anyway, might as well enjoy it? shoo, so we can change!" Kei was grinning as she spoke, Spencer and Matt both quickly leaving. Matt hesitated for a second outside the door, his smile faltering. _I really hope they get to keep this innocence._ Little did he know, the universe had other plans for them.


	3. Dangerous Turn

**i actually had the first part of this written for a while. anyway, i hope you like it! just trying to get the story going, and introduce a few more characters. (BEST PRANK EVER COMING UP!)**

* * *

Kei smiled as she trotted over to her friends, her packed duffel bag loosely slung over her shoulder. She had been running a little late that morning, having forgotten her hygiene supplies in her room. The other three were all standing in a small cluster, waiting to be told to board one of the shuttles departing for the ship. All had duffel bags over their shoulders, all half full like her own, with the exception of Matt's. he was also wearing a grey and black digital pattern camouflaged uniform, designed for use on warships by paramilitary mercenaries, as well as a black cloth covered vest, hiding the specialized reflective armor plate beneath. He also had his rifle loosely slung over his shoulder, the sleek slim weapon looking very different from the usual long ranged phasers security staff had access too. Spencer was standing across from her, clutching his head, while T'vrell was watching with an eyebrow raised.

"Come on Spence, man up!" she was just coming to a stop as Spence responded.

"Not sooo loud hawk! Your voice is making my head hurt worse!" Kei was unable to hold back laughter at him herself.

"Oh, is the poor little cadet feeling a little hung over?" she tried to put the highest pitch she could manage on her voice, which caused Spencer to cringe even more.

"Not you too Smalls! Please, lower your voices!?" his quiet pleading voice was pitiful enough that Kei shrugged off his use of Smalls.

"Oh come on Spence, it cant be that bad!?" he groaned again, wincing every time her voice left her mouth.

"You guys were just drinking synthol. That crap don't hit like a real drink does!" he was still keeping his voice quiet, but he was at least looking at them, his eyes completely blood shot.

"I wasn't. you're just too much of a little bitch." Kei gave Matt a confused glance, having never heard him insult anybody. He was smirking at Spencer, his own eyes as blood shot as Spencer's. As she watched, he too was wincing a little every time a louder noise occurred. She hadn't realized how much the three of them had drunk last night, T'vrell keeping an eye on them. She barely remembered anything beyond arriving at the club. Although she did faintly remember Matt being more vocal than she had ever seen. Spencer had been his usual self, loud, obnoxious, and attempting to dance with every single girl in the club, more often than not getting decked by them as well. Kei herself was kinda surprised he wasn't covered in bruises.

"Oh… well… uh….." he seemed to be trying to think through a fog, earning a giggle from a Kei and an even quieter chuckle from Matt. The look of pained concentration on his face was beyond comical.

"Does everyone have everything? This is supposed to be a three month mission after all." Everyone nodded to T'Vrell, except matt, who patted over all of his equipment pouches and weapons.

"Yup. Good to go. What shuttle number are we again?" Matt was still wincing every now and again, but it was very clear he handled real alcohol better than spencer. Then again, he was three years older than the three of them.

"Twenty-six?! I think? My brain is all fuzzy." T'Vrell nodded before she spoke.

" yes, and Shuttle twenty-one just launched. Shouldn't be long now." Kei gestured at an empty bench, leading the way over and dropping her duffle before she sat down. The others all followed suite, Matt and Spencer sitting beside her, with T'Vrell on the other side of Spencer.

"Guys?" Matt's one word startled the group, something about the tone being vastly different from his usual voice.

"What is it?" Kei was more than curious, Matt starting conversations being a very rare thing.

"I… remember that once we are out there, it's no longer a simulation. One wrong move, and someone dies. One misstep, one bad call. And hell, even worse, sometimes, the right call means losing someone. Be ready for that." It was words they had all heard at some point or another, the same dead serious tone of voice being used as he was speaking with now. the same knowing voice, as if they had first hand experience.

"Dude, I think we are aware." Spencer reached across Kei to pat him on the back, both of them glaring at him, albeit for different reasons.

"Spencer, I'm serious, this aint a god damned game! None of you actually know what it's like to be shot at!" Kei's focus instantly switched back to Matt, noticing the sudden downward shift in his voice. "None of you know what it's like to see your friends die…. To….. for a decision you made… to get someone killed…." His voice dropped out completely, tears falling out of his eyes, only visible for a second or so before he dropped his face into his hands. All of them were stunned into silence. Kei couldn't find the words to speak with, instead deciding to wrap an arm over his shoulder, gently grabbing his upper arm with her other hand. unlike his usual when he was touched in any way, he didn't tense up or shy away. surprisingly enough, both T'Vrell and Spencer stood, Spencer standing beside him and resting his hand on Matt's shoulder while T crouched in front of him, gently laying her hand on one of his knees. It seemed they both realized what it meant for Matt to say what he just did.

"Hey, Matthew. We do understand. We all joined Starfleet in full knowledge of the dangers before us. space isn't safe, it isn't a vacation spot. All we can do aim to make the best shot at it we can, and if we miss? We adjust our aim and fire again until we either hit, or we die. It's as simple as that." Kei noticed a small shift under her arm at Spencer's words, not realizing why until she felt fingers on hers, pulling her hand off his arm. A second later, he took a deep breath, gently brushing them all off.

"Sorry. Let my emotions get the best of me. And you are right Spence." His face was still wet as he smiled at the three of them, looking completely unashamed of crying like he just did. "Before I forget, Spence, what was this big prank you had planned for today?" he just sniggered, their attention being grabbed by a screaming man down in the court yard below. All four rushed over to the rails, Spencer just grinning.

"I have just one question! What cadet programmed my personal replicator to produce several hundred thousand packing peanuts!" the man shouting was none other than the commander of the academy, and he was holding up a small foam S. even Kei couldn't help but giggle.

"Just wait, it'll get better." Kei gave Spencer a worried expression, to which he just grinned about. "I may have released a virus into the schools system that has programmed every single replicator in the academy to start producing one hundred thousand packing peanuts, every hour, on the hour, for the next oh ten hours or so." He was grinning like an idiot, sharing a quick fist bump with Matt before Kei could slap him with enough force to stagger him. "Ow, why!?" she just glared at him, fighting the want to burst out laughing.

"Oh come on! You know why!" he just grinned at her, a distinct hand shaped red mark on his face.

"Shuttle twenty six is now boarding." His grin intensified as he danced away.

"Well, that's our ride, best g-" his voice dropped out as he tripped over one of the duffel bags sprawling over them, his cursing drawing several peoples attention, Kei no longer able to hold back her laughter anymore. When she glanced over, she noticed that Matt had the widest grin she had ever seen on his face, unable to help but smile herself.

* * *

Matt was silent as he stood in formation with the twenty or so other cadets that were the new security team for the Gallant. Kei was standing at the front of the formation, technically in charge of it. we were standing in one of the two small shuttle bays, the bay barely large enough for a single type eight shuttle craft. A man that looked to be in his fifties walked in, Kei calling the group to attention, given he had a commander rank on his collar. He didn't say a word as he walked from the door at the rear of the bay, causing him to parallel the front of the formation. He had his hands loosely clasped behind his back, his salt and pepper like black hair short and well groomed, a dark leather holster on his hip marking him as a member of the security personnel. He was inspecting every single one of them as he passed, Matt being in the second row roughly behind Kei, who was centered and in front of the formation. He froze as his eyes slid across Matt, seeming to take a second to process what he was staring at. But that second of hesitation was all there was as he stormed through the first rank, shouting.

"And what the flying fuck is this?! down!" Matt instantly dropped down and started doing push ups, the commanders shouting continuing. "Cadet! What the fuck do you think you are wearing!?" Hawk almost stopped doing push ups to respond, realizing that was not likely a good idea. instead, he continued to push as he spoke.

"Tactical combat gear designed for close quarters battle aboard starships sir!" he crouched down in front of Matt, a glare filling his almost teal green eyes.

"Who the fuck are you that you seem to think it's appropriate to wear whatever the fuck you want!?" Matt's arms were starting to burn and ache, mentally cursing himself.

"Cadet Matthew Hawkins sir!" he stood, and if Matt had been able to pay attention, would have noticed him taking a second look at Matt, from the phaser rifle lying on his duffel bag to the pistol on his thigh.

"Get up cadet. I want a full written essay as to why you thought it was appropriate to not where your proper uniform. and it better be good, otherwise, I will smoke your ass until your grandkids get tired. You got that cadet?" Matt snapped to his feet, right back into the position of attention, sweat pouring down his body.

"Yes sir!" the commander nodded, stepping back out of the formation, his attention focusing on Kei.

"And if I don't have that five thousand word report from him by tomorrow morning, you will be right there along beside him, cadet! Who the fuck are you?!" she quivered slightly, clearly having not expected this kind of treatment. None of the cadets did.

"Cadet Jenifer Kei sir! Assigned as Acting Head of Security sir!" he nodded, turning to the formation as a whole as he shouted again.

"Your PADDs have already been updated with a ship map and information guide, as well as your cabins! If you are still in this hanger bay in the next thirty seconds, I promise you, you will fucking regret it! Dismissed!" matt was near instantly moving, grabbing his rifle and duffle in one hand, the first to be moving from the entire formation. he would have been the first through the door if he hadn't stopped next to Kei, grabbing her half full duffel bag before she could react, herself barely making it through the door before the commander yelled halt. Matt froze, knowing what was coming, knowing he was the only one in the hanger still, just a step behind Kei. "Hawkins! drop those bags! Kei, get your ass back in here!" she begrudgingly complied as Matt dropped the bags, herself dropping a small back pack of hers on her duffle. "pick up your duffle's, and I want twenty laps around the bay, holding those bags over your god damned heads!" Matt groaned inwardly, his arms already aching from the pushups earlier. _Fuck! I'm so sorry Jen…._

()

Spencer smiled as he stepped onto the Gallants bridge, his eyes sweeping the room. The front of the room was a large view screen, dominating the curved wall. Two separate consoles stood facing it, the one on the left being the pilots station, the one on the right being weapons control. Directly behind them, on a raised dias, was the captains chair, currently empty. There was a small balcony behind it that had an array of consoles and chairs, from communications, to sensors and everything in between. He waved hi to T'Vrell, who was already at her station, recognizing the black haired tiny framed Morikawa at the weapons station. The pilot was a cadet he had seen around the academy, but had never actually met before. He recognized everyone on the bridge actually, maybe not by name, but at least had seen them around. They were all busy with preparing the ship to move, the viewport showing the inside of Earth's main space dock, specifically one of the interior moorings for smaller vessels. There was a large glass pane showing the inside of the station, a massive number twenty-three marking it as mooring number twenty three. People could be seen moving about the station, Spencer a little jealous that he couldn't go explore the station. They had been on the ship for a couple of hours already, Spencer having been given the instructions to visit all of the command areas of the ship, from engineering, to the med bay and hanger bays. He had seen both Kei and Hawkins in the hanger bay, a commander smoking them for some reason, one he hadn't tried to delve into.

"Alright, Weapons and shield status!?" Spencer found himself shouting without much thought, having done several simulated pre-voyage checks. Morikawa was instantaneous in his response.

"Both forward phaser banks ready, all three defensive pulse turrets ready, torpedo tube ready and fully stocked. Shield systems read as fully operational." He smirked as he stepped into the room, standing near the captains chair.

"Thanks Ninja. Flight status cadet…..?" he lengthened the word 'cadet', hoping he would catch to introduce himself. He was blonde haired and blue eyed, looking more bored than anything.

"Cadet James Washington! Thrusters purring, impulse engines primed and ready!" he had a thick accent, likely hailing from the British isles if Spencer had to guess. He didn't even look behind him, his mouth opening to speak when T'Vrell spoke on her own.

"Communications are online and ready, already done communications checks with dock control." He rolled his eyes and turned around as she spoke, using the breath he had taken earlier to respond.

"As I was about to say before you so kindly showed off T, Sensors?" a woman was at the console, looking about his age, maybe a little shorter than him. she had dark red hair, and although she had a small amount of extra weight, it honestly made her down right cute, which wasn't a word Spencer would normally use. She had vibrant green eyes, and was smiling at him cheerfully.

"Cadet Haley Jones! And sensors are up and pinging!" every single one of her words seemed to be filled with energy, not one person on the bridge managing to not smile at her, with the exception of T. Spencer didn't get any further in his checks when one of the security personnel shouted.

"Captain on deck!" every one leapt out of chairs and snapped to attiention, almost missing his quiet response.

"At ease. Number one, we ready to launch?" Spencer was confused for a second, barely managing to realize that the captain was referring to him.

"All primary systems are up and running. Ready for your word sir!" the captain smirked before sinking his aging body into the command chair.

"Roger that number one. Take us out." He nodded to the captain, his focus shifting back to T'vrell.

"T, get us cleared." She nodded, saying a few words into her communications headset before giving Spencer a thumbs up. "Alright, Wash, release moorings and back us out. Thrusters only." The ship lurched, the sound of the moorings disconnecting reverberating through the whole ship. a second later, the bow thrusters were firing, the ship backing away from the moorings and turning to leave the space dock. The doors out into space opened as they approached, the massive doors swamping their small vessel. "Destination sir?" the captain glanced up at Spencer, smirking.

"I hear the Vega system is nice this time of year?" Spener nodded, his attention returning to the main veiwscreen. The pilot had brought up a holographic screen around him that showed every angle the ships camera could give him, showing a full three hundred and sixty degree view of the top and bottom of the ship, giving him a clear view for flying.

"You heard him Wash, spin up the warp core, once we are out of the space dock, one quarter impulse." Wash nodded, the ship suddenly speeding up a few seconds later as the impulse engines fired up. The space dock was now shrinking away from them, the distance continuing to expand.

"Warp core spun up, coordinates locked, ready to engage." Spencer glanced at the captain after the pilot spoke, the captain nodding. Spencer activated a wrist pad he was wearing, linking into the ships intercom before he spoke.

"All hands, prepare for Warp jump." As soon as he said that, he disabled his connection to the intercom and continued. "Wash, punch it." the ship lurched underneath him, nearly causing him to fall over. One of the security officers hadn't been able to catch himself, flat out falling on his rump. The captain burst out laughing at these reactions.

"Good work number one. Don't worry, modern ships don't lurch like that. Hell, the newest ships don't even feel a bump. Wash, gimme an ETA?" the pilot turned the holo system off, turning his chair around as he spoke.

"Computer says twelve hours and seventeen minutes sir." The captain nodded, glancing around the bridge, suddenly frowning.

"Where's my head of security?" Spencer cringed, not realizing that Kei was supposed to be here.

"Last I saw her, she was being given remedial training in hanger two sir." He tried to not cringe as he spoke, the captain rolling his eyes.

"Great, commander Horst back to his old tricks again." He typed a command into his command chair, bringing up the intercom system.

"Cadet Kei, Commander Horst, to the bridge immediately." His voice could be clearly heard ringing across the entire vessel. The bridge was silent for the next few minutes, a few of the other stations all reporting as in the green, as well as similar reports from the medical bay and hanger bays. One of the bridge doors suddenly hissed open, allowing an older man in a crisp uniform to walk in, the red line on it marking him as a tactical branch member, and the three bars on his collar marking him as a commander. Kei was right behind him, her face flushed and uniformed wrinkled, most of her uniform soaked through with sweat. Both of them saluted the captain as they approached the command chair, the captain returning it. "Commander, Cadet. The security shifts started on engineering and the bridge?" Kei was nodding, clearly unable to find her voice she was breathing so hard. "Alright, Cadet Kei, dismissed, Commander, with me. Cadet Armstrong, you have the conn. Don't break the ship. I'm rather fond of her." Spencer smirked as he saluted the captain, the Captain smirking as he returned the two salutes he was receiving, just before disappearing into his ready room, the commander following.

"You okay Smalls?" she glared at him, Spencer noticing she was now wearing a security belt, a holster for the small standard issue phaser on her hip, and a set of handcuffs on the other.

"No. I've been being smoked at every turn since I got on this ship!" Spencer raised an eyebrow at her, smirking.

"What for? Smoke sessions are reserved for screwing up something?" she sighed, her breath now calmer and more regular.

"Matt not getting out of the hanger in time, not instantly knowing how to sign out gear from the armory, not having the security teams in place early enough, not briefing the teams as to how the roster is going to work, not having a plan already in place for the roster, not having emergency plans already set up. List keeps going. Matt's been sticking with me for all of it. hell he saved my ass in the arms room, helping some of the guys get their weapons signed out faster." Spencer smirked, panting her shoulder and instantly regretting it. her clothing was slimy from the amount of sweat soaking it.

"Disgusting. And since when was Matt slow?" she groaned, leaving that as her only response. "Well, you should go change. As much we would all love to chat, I have a job and you are stinking up the bridge." She smacked the back of his head as she started to step away, not looking back as she shouted.

"Talk later than ass. Don't break the ship." he rolled his eyes, muttering to himself about how many people seemed to think he was going to do anything to damage the ship.

* * *

Cadet James Washington sipped on a mug of coffee as he lounged in his pilots seat. there was really nothing to do on the bridge, now that the ship was well underway, so the acting first officer had told all but James and the comms officer to go get settled in their rooms. He promised to have them relieved in a few hours, which that time was going to be shortly upon them. He had so far not said a word to the Vulcan behind him, not much more than glancing at her to be perfectly honest. Instead, he had been content to set the main view screen to show the blues and blacks of warp travel, finding the sight oddly soothing. He had honestly had more trouble fighting sleep than anything else. The computer handled most of the work for flying the ship, leaving him with absolutely nothing to do. By the constant sounds of motion behind him, the Vulcan had found something to busy herself with, only occasionally hearing her check in with federation command. The entire first week of their voyage was supposed to be an intensive training mission, running drills and perfecting actually doing what they had been trained to do. That was followed by a month of field training and maneuvering training for the crew, from deploying away teams on planets and ships, to how to maneuver in space combat. They were supposedly going to being taught things few Starfleet members were ever taught. Following that, they were to do two months of patrol duty, although they were supposed to keep to quiet systems. He had heard rumors that they would be surprised by training drills against other ship crews and other training scenarios on their patrols, but he wasn't sure they were much more than rumors.

"We have a signal on the emergency band. Playing on speakers now." he startled at the sound of the Vulcans voice, quickly bring up his control interface as a scratchy grainy voice filled the bridge.

"thi… the….S… elfast…. Sustained….tical…. mage…..ed assis…nce." He cursed the transmission so garbled that it was hard to decipher as he slowed the ship.

"bloody hell, get the bridge crew on deck, bring us up to yellow alert. Do you have coordinates on that signal?" a yellow light started flashing on the ceiling an alarm blared across the ship.

"Still locking in, but I believe they are in the wake of a comet, less than a quarter of a light year away." he glanced up at the main screen as she threw it up on it, bringing the ship around with out a seconds hesitation. Technically, he was currently in charge of the ship. he typed a command into the interface, already locking in a spot clear of the comets wake to drop out of warp and letting the computer figure out the rest for the deceleration process. The alarm in the bridge cut off as one of the doors opened, the captain striding in.

"Status?" before James could think to answer, the Vulcan was speaking.

"At eighteen thirty seven we detected a distress call from what I believe to be the U.S.S. Belfast. Science vessel. I'm still locking in on the exact location of their beacon, but they are within the tail of this comet sir." He nodded, dropping into his command chair as more of the bridge crew filed in, all falling into their seats with exceptions of Armstrong, Kei, and the Commander from earlier.

"Morikawa, power weapons, I want shields online and ready. Horst, get the security teams armed and ready." He quickly activated his intercom, already speaking. "All hands to stations. This is not a drill! All cadets, follow the instructions given by your instructors!" the commander and Kei left the room, likely headed for the armory to start issuing out the few weapons on board the ship. James brought up the manual controls as the ship dropped out of warp, a massive rock the size of at least four of the earth spacedock ahead of them, still hundreds of kilometers away. blue wispy gasses surrounded and trailed it, stretching on for hundreds of kilometers behind it, intermixed with hundreds of small asteroids ranging from the size of a shuttle to a full size cruiser.

"I have a fix on their beacon sir. Still no comms since the distress call. Marking on screen." James quickly fired up the three sixty imaging systems as T'Vrell spoke, letting his hands rest on the throttle and control yoke, his feet resting on a pair of pedals. The pedals controlled the braking systems on either side of the ship, allowing the pilot to slow one side of the ship and not the other, effectively turning the ship, while the yoke controlled pitch and rolling the vessel. The throttle was a multi-directional device, able to slide forward and back without any resistance, but also being able to be moved vertically and laterally, but those directions were controlled by springs, making it easier to operated forward and rearward flight, given those directions on the throttle controlled lateral and vertical movement.

"Helm, bring us in, full impulse power. Comms, start hailing them as soon as we can get a tightbeam signal to them. Sensors, give me something." James slid the throttle forward, the natural resistance on it preventing him from slamming it forward. The ship instantly responded, quickly accelerating to cross the couple hundred kilometers to reach their destination.

"Gas is ionized sir! Sensors are not getting much!" the bridge fell silent as the ship raced through space, James slowing down as he began to enter the comets tail. It wasn't hard to maneuver the ship through, the large number of floating rocks being well spread out. "I got her! reading severe damage to the ships super structure. Shields are offline, I got life signs but not many." As she spoke, the ship came into view. It was an older design, a single disk with a single large engine attached to the lower portion, a similarly shaped hanger above. Or at least, the engine was supposed to be attached. The hull ad been severed between the engine and disk, the engine itself cut in half. The hanger bay was a blackened husk, the top blown open. there were dozens of burns all across the vessel, exposing the superstructure beneath. Even so, the small ship was still nearly bigger than the Gallant.

"I don't like this. how long do they have?" the captain was leaning on one arm of his chair, his attention focused on the view screen.

"Minutes at most sir. Life support is failing." The captain nodded to the woman as James slowed the ship to a stop. They were sill a couple of kilometers away, far enough that the reactor detonating wouldn't harm the ship.

"Lower shields, transport the crew off. As soon as they are off, I want those shields back up." Almost on que with the shields dropping, a bird like ship materialized ahead of them, firing several green disrupter rounds. James was instantly reacting, dropping the throttle down and forward as he angled the nose of the ship down, bringing the nose back up just in time to keep the shots from being direct hits. The ship rocked as James watched the green bolts rip furrows into the hull plating, at least one puncturing through the armor and causing a hull breach. "Shields up and return fire, phasers and pulse weapons!" the star board phaser bank fired a beam of destructive energy washing across the enemy ship's shielding. But the port phaser bank didn't fire, nor did the topside turret. A second volley of rounds rocked the ship, shields flaring to life just in time to prevent damage.

"Sir, the weapons wont fire! All I got is torpedo control! Forward shields down thirty percent, but holding!" the captain cursed about to speak when a voice broke out over the intercom.

"We've been boarded! Klingons in the tra…" the voice cut off, the speakers emitting the sound of disrupter discharge before cutting out.

"James, evasive maneuvers, Morikawa, you get an opportunity to hit them with a torpedo, do it!" his voice was cut off again as his communicator beeped, the captain instantly answering it.

"Boarding parties, port side weapons control and transporter rooms!" the voice was of the commander, the captian continuing almost the instant the commanders voice cut off.

"Everyone, grab weapons from the emergency arms locker, Armstrong, get your ass to the port firing control and get our weapons online!" James gulped as he began to move the ship, rolling pitching and ruddering to move the ship away from the enemy vessel as well as expose fresh shielding to them.


	4. Battle for the Gallant

**Okay, i think i wrote this chapter really well, and that's saying something given some of my best chapters, i thought were terrible. i'll admit, i show alot more dynamic to these characters than even i originally thought i could. and yes, this is supposed to be an EXTREMELY dark chapter, especially toward the end. anyway, hope you all enjoy! if you happen to be following this story, please, if there is a chapter to drop a review on, this is most definitely one of them!**

* * *

Kei rubbed her sore shoulder as she walked down the hall, heading for the port transporter bay. She knew they were going to be taking on passengers from the damaged vessel shortly, having decided she would help how she could. She was still a ways away from the transporter room when the whole ship lurched down, almost like the feeling of an elevator going down. She was confused, not sure why the ship would have lurched like that. She was nearly knocked off her feet as the entire ship shook, able to hear the sound of metal being rent apart.

"What the hell?" before she had time open a comms channel, she heard the distinctive sound of someone being beamed aboard, her eyes snapping down the corridor to see several sets of red particles seeming to form together into the shapes of an entire Klingon squad. There was a fellow cadet pretty well among the group, Kei watching in horror as one of them fired a disruptor bolt into the cadet's back, the energy blast going clean through. she instantly panicked, yanking her weapon from it's holster and firing, it's beam slicing through one of the klingon's chest cavity. She was horrified by what the weapon had just done, almost freezing at the sight of it. She barely managed to slam herself up against the wall, the curve of the hallway preventing their disruptor rounds from hitting her. green bolts were ripping by her as she ran along the wall, using the natural curve of the narrow hallway to cover her. that turned out to not be all that great of an idea, as a green beam ripped through the wall, plating and sent structural supports blasting out of the wall. Kei had just barely managed to fall on her chest in time to avoid a section of debris being blasted from the wall. Excruciating pain ripped into her thigh, clouding her thoughts as she rolled onto her back, seeing a piece of metal sticking out of her leg. She raised her weapon back the way she came as she opened a comm line on the security net, hearing several calls about the intruders across the net.

"This is Cadet Kei! I'm injured on port side C deck, and I have Klingons closing on me!" she didn't get the chance to continue, one of the Klingons entering her view. She reacted by firing her weapon at him, slicing a section of the wall behind him with the beam. He snapped off a pair of disruptor rounds, but was unharmed. She panicked again, trying to scramble back, despite the pain in her leg. Another Klingon rounded the bend, a massive assault cannon in his hands. It was a two handed weapon, not held up at the shoulder like a rifle. It had what looked like twelve barrels, likely using to focus a beam of energy into a highly destructive blast. She panicked again, firing her phaser only to see it glancing off a personal energy shield. She continued to hold the trigger down, her training slipping away as she tried to bring him down. She ended up dropping her phaser as it began to spark, the intense heat of the weapon burning her hands. The Klingon just laughed, moving past more of the debris to get a clear shot on her. a shot the Klingon wasn't getting. A burst of orangish red bolts ripped over her, a series of familiar high pitched blasts accompanying the shots from the phaser compression rifle. The burst of fire blasted the shield away, two of the shots missing, but one finding it's mark in the klingon's face. Another of the Klingon soldiers was stepping into her view, just to be cut down by a phaser beam. The next thing she knew, someone had grabbed one of her arms, using it to drag her back as she looked up. Hawkins was above her, one handing his rifle and firing bursts of automatic fire down the hall as he dragged her behind some debris. She was shaking as he quickly looked at the shrapnel on her leg, aiming his weapon at it and firing, leaving most of the metal in her leg but vaporizing what was exposed.

"Sorry, just trust me." She nodded as he pulled a bandage from the medical kit on his thigh, quickly wrapping the wound. "think you can walk?"

"I don't know." He nodded, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. She gingerly put weight on her leg, finding that it was hurting like nobody's business, but she was able to put weight on it. "i…. what's…" she was struggling to find words, unable to shake the images of the cadet being killed, or what her own weapon had done out of her mind. Her entire body was quaking in terror. Even the two security members with Matt looked absolutely terrified, one very pale as he stared down the corridor, phase rifle half raised, the other, a red skinned lizard like alien, cowering behind a piece of debris. It seemed quiet at the moment, but that could very well change.

"Jen. Breath. We gotta move. Port weapons control needs to be retaken. Okay? She nodded and his attention focused to his two team mates. "Harris, Padual, hold this location, focus on suppressing them. I'll try to get you two back up." They nodded as he continued, the human gulping as the alien shuddered. "Harris, I need your pistol." He nodded, tossing the phaser to Matt, which he instantly shoved into her hands. She shakily nodded, him giving her arm a comforting squeeze before he took off down the hallway, Kei struggling to keep up. The pain in her leg was much worse now that she was running, making her half limp the whole way. She barely noticed when he began to slow down, a T-intersection on their right. She shot past him, right into view of the intersection. She barely had time to register that there were a pair of Klingons in the side hall, one facing her, when Matt slammed into her, shouting. The Klingon fired, his first shot striking Matt in the back as they fell. He was still on top of her, but she still managed to aim from underneath him, sweeping her beam across both of the Klingons. Both dropped, screaming.

"Matt! Matt!" she screamed as she managed to snake out from under him, instantly checking his back to find the cloth of his vest gone, a chunk missing from the hard ceramic plate hidden beneath. He groaned as he rolled himself over, clutching his head.

"Ow. Fuck I think I knocked myself out for a second there." She glared at him, able to see a bump forming on the side of his head already.

"Damn it Matt! Don't you ever scare me like that again!" she smacked his chest plate as she yelled at him, having to shake her hand from nearly bruising it on his chest plate. He startled at her yelling, just before smiling.

"Jeez Smalls, remind me to not piss you off again." Her fear at the situation melted for a second, too annoyed at hearing her nickname to notice.

"Quit calling me that already!" he smirked before getting to his feet, bringing his weapon back up and continuing down the corridor. They could hear distant disruptor fire, the unique sound of the weapons carrying through the ship, along with the much quieter phaser discharge, almost inaudible. The two of them slowed down from the crazy sprint they had been moving at, Kei taking the interior side of the hall, Matt taking the exterior. That way, he would be the first to see a threat, given his rifle had much more firepower than her smaller weapon. They both were moving at a brisk walk, weapons up and ready to fire off a shot. Matt had always called this the high ready, were your weapon was raised like you were about to fire, but you weren't looking down the sights. And they did this without saying a word, having run almost all of the tactical scenarios together. Before long, his weapon began firing, him rushing to a support pillar on the wall to use as cover. She quickly moved up, using a pillar further down the hall so she could see while he kept firing, making it harder for the enemy to return fire. Even so, a few disruptor bolts zipped down the hall way, leaving burn marks on the walls. The corridor further ahead was covered in debris, mostly ceiling panels and supports. The roof was dented in, but still holding atmosphere, the Klingons using the debris as cover. She quickly aimed and fired, a short burst from her beam weapon boring through a Klingon soldiers skull. Three of the aliens were on the ground from Matt's weapon, with a hell of a lot more burns on the walls behind them from his misses. She ducked back into cover, seemingly just in time as a pair of disruptor bolts whipping by, one crazing the support she was behind. She was about to curse when she was slammed into the support pillar, not even sure what had happened as her world went black.

* * *

"I need ideas! We cant fight that ship head on!" the captains shout came clear across the bridge, silence following. _This is stupid, but it might just work._ Morikawa Rei took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts so that he would speak in a relatively calm voice.

"If we rein force our forward shields, then ram their vessel at full impulse, we may strike with enough force to jar their systems offline sir!" the bridge was silent, and he silently cursed to himself, realizing that it likely sounded dumber out loud than in his head.

"We'll need all the speed we can get. Wash, do it!" he went wide eyed, about to rush to put all of their shield power to the front, only to realize that the pilot was looping them around an asteroid. He quickly powered the rear shielding, just in time as a burst of disruptor rounds hit the shielding. The pilot, meanwhile, had already begun pitching the ship, the throttle maxed. He was also pulling the throttle up, firing the underside thrusters to help redirect their momentum. They were almost scraping their shielding on the asteroid, leaving very little time for Rei to redirect the shield power to the front. He barely had time to tell the system to load up a torpedo before they were ripping out from behind the asteroid. "All hands! Brace for impact!" no one had time to know before the ship was slamming into the Klingon warbird with enough force that everyone was slammed forward, several people sent over their consoles. Both he and the pilot managed to stay in their chairs, no one else managing too. But that was all they needed. Rei could barely breath from the pain in his chest, but he forced himself to focus. The pilot already had the ship in full reverse, Rei pulling up his tactical feed on the enemy ship. its shields were still up, but it had nearly lost all of them, a collective total of around six percent. But that was still enough to keep a torpedo from doing much damage to the enemy ship. he cursed, having hoped they would have had more of an effect.

"Damn it, minimal effect on target! Enemy shields are still up!" _damn it, if only we had a second torpedo tube._ That thought raced through Rei's brain as he spoke.

"Fuck, that hurt. Better effect than you thought kid. Look at her engine emissions! You must'ave given her a nasty shake!" the captain was still picking himself up off the deck as he spoke. The enemy ships engines were sputtering, the larger ship slowly drifting away from them. "Status report!" Rei was the first to speak, coughing as he did so.

"Shields….. shields at seventeen percent, aft, port and starboard at nothing. Phaser firing control still offline." Wash instantly followed him up.

"Warp core is offline. Impulse and thrusters reading green." Another one of the cadets spoke, a male that Rei didn't know.

"Mutilple hull breaches. Containment fields have already triggered. All where the disruptors grazed us sir!" they didn't get the chance to go further through the status report, the enemy ship beginning to turn away. rei noticed it's shields drop off, it's cloaking field beginning to activate.

"Fuck! Torpedo away!" he barely managed to get a guidance lock before firing, the ship vibrating as the red orb lanced away, closing the multi-kilometer gap in seconds. But the enemy ship had already disappeared, Rei's gut dropping out as he realized that he more than likely missed. Only to be rewarded with the torpedo impacting something. Metal and atmosphere blasted into space, the green hull around the impact site appearing as the cloaking system hiccupped. But the torpedo punched clean through without detonating, shown by the ship's cloaking system recovering. The weapon slammed into one of the small asteroids, detonating on impact. "Damn it! negative on a kill! Positive impact!" he heard several curses from around the bridge, beginning another check of his systems and making sure another torpedo was loaded and armed.

"Sensors are on the fritz. I'm rebooting them now!" the female voice sounded pained, Rei glancing back to see that there was blood flowing from her hair line.

"I need a method of tracking them, ideas? Morikawa, rebalance the shields and divert weapons power to bring them back online!" he was already doing so when a new voice spoke, that of Cadet T'Vrell.

"Sir, Klingon vessels use plasma to power their vessels. It is possible that the impact ruptured the containment on their plasma cells, and the hole the torpedo made could very well be leaking plasma and radiation into space." Rei nearly cheered as his weapons came up green, butting back into the conversation again before anyone could speak.

"We have weapons control! Phaser's and Pulse phasers ready to fire on command!" before more could be said, the sound of transporters gained his attention, several sets of blue orbs forming together all across the bridge, forming together to make an entire Klingon squad. He would have reached for the Phaser he had set on the console if it hadn't been launched across the room on impact. Several disruptor blasts rang out in the room, killing one of the science officers who had reached for a Phaser and the two security team members. He slowly put his hands up and stepped away from his console as the obvious leader of the Klingons stepped right up to the captain.

"Order ship surrender. Now!" he aimed his long pistol straight at the captain as he spoke in very crude English. One Klingon stepped up to rei, attempting to jam his weapon into Rei's face as a threat. The next and last thing the Klingon knew, it was staring down the barrel of it's own disruptor. Rei had moved with the speed of a cat, slamming one of his hands into the Klingons wrist to point the weapon up, and his other into the crook of the Klingons elbow to bring the weapon under his chin. In the same smooth motion, his left hand slid up to the trigger of the weapon and jammed the Klingons own finger down on it. as the weapon discharged, he grabbed it with his right hand, fluidly bouncing it into a proper grip as the Klingon fell, his grip on the weapon broken. Two Klingons dropped from green bolts fired from his weapon as several bridge crew members managed to grab phasers and disruptors. The captain had tackled the enemy squad leader down, but not before the Klingon managed to fire a bolt, straight into his gut. Rei was mortified, seeing the Klingon shove the dying captain off of him. before he could do more, Wash was firing a recovered Phaser into the Klingon, burning a hole clean through him. the bridge had gone mostly quiet, but there wasn't a second to stop, as one of the doors was blown in, several Klingons moving to storm in.

* * *

Matt felt the ship jerk out from underneath him, forcing him to roll around the support he had been leaning on. Before he could really register what was going on, wind started to tear at him with enough force to send him flying down the corridor. Instinct alone was all that allowed him to grab on to a jagged section of steel from one of the supports, glancing up just in time to see Jenifer flying toward him. he threw his arm out, nearly losing his grip as she slammed into him, barely managing to catch her around the waist before he pulled her tight to his chest. The howl of the wind dropped off as suddenly as it had come, Matt slamming to the floor with Jenifer on top of him. he groaned, every muscle in his body now aching, both from the adrenaline from the fighting, excretion in that last moment, and the near constant smoke session he had already endured today. Add to it a near miss from an assault cannon and the disruptor round that had hit his back, he was hurting. Kei was totally limp, his arm still protectively clutching her to him. her head was resting beside his neck, Matt oddly not feeling all that uncomfortable with the position. He assumed she was hurting as bad as he was, given she hadn't moved either. he wasn't worried about her, mostly because he could still feel her chest rise and fall as she breathed. He wasn't really sure how long he sat there when an all too familiar voice rang out, drawing his attention.

"Come on guys, get a room already!" he looked up to see an upside down Spencer, a phaser rifle in his hands. Or at least, he was upside down from Matt's perspective.

"Do you even see what just happened to us!? I don't even want to fucking move right now!" I felt like I was missing something, spencers next comment reminding me of what.

"Smalls, you're looking pretty comfy there?" Matt started to panic when she didn't move or respond to Spencer, having expected some sort of jibe back at him. Matt tried to be as gentle as possible as he rolled her off of him, panicking outright when he saw the blood on the side of her head, streaking down her face from a spot in her hairline.

"Jenifer!" he snapped into a crouched position over her, terrified that she hadn't responded. Spencer was beside them in a heartbeat, all joking thrown aside.

"Hey, come on smalls, snap out of it!" Spencer gently shook her, a small groan slipping out of her. Matt sighed in relief, letting himself fall back onto the floor.

"Ugh…. My head's killing me…. What did I miss?" Spencer chuckled, Matt's eyes opening to see him still crouched over her. she was pressing both hands against her temples.

"We nearly got sucked into the black, that's what. You alright Jen?" she nodded at Matt's words, Spencer giving both of them a startled expression for half a second, followed by a devious smirk.

"So it's jen now huh? Can I call you that too?" she was instantly glaring at him.

"Fuck no. it's Jenifer or Kei to you, jerkface." He laughed, offering her a hand up as Matt leapt back to his feet. He took a deep breath to try and settle himself, even that being painful as he grabbed his rifle, still securely attached to him by it's single point sling. "Gimme that." Spencer didn't even get a chance to respond as she tugged his pistol from where it was tucked into his pants, a faint whine emitting from it as she powered it up. He shrugged and waved both of them after him, heading back the way we had come.

"Lets go make sure the port firing control is ours." Matt was instantly following, Kei close on his heels. The trio quickly worked their way around the hull breach, easily finding the door to the firing control. It was closed when they arrived, Matt sliding to the front of the group as he spoke.

"Just remember how we drilled it. I'll get the panel before going in, Smalls, take the rear." Both Jenifer and Spencer nodded, stacking up behind Matt as he slipped up to the door, weapon aiming at the door, but not sticking out from the door jam. Matt took another painful deep breath, trying to settle his nerves, and completely unable to do so. _Alright, here goes….._ with that thought, he lunged forward, fluidly slapping the door switch with his left hand before stepping into the room, ignoring the room at large as he aimed at the close corner across the door from him, clearing it before his attention went to the room at large. The three of them had moved so fast that they had practically stepped into the doorway together, all three firing on the two Klingons in the room almost simultaneously. The twin beams and single bolt were more than enough to kill the two aliens, both collapsing to the ground like sacks. Without a word, all three of them moved to separate consoles around the room, reactivating the targeting and control systems for the weapons.

"Alright, weapons should be up. Kei, get see if you cant get some security here. Matt, we should go see if we can secure th-" Spencer's voice dropped off as a voice came off Kei's still open comms channel.

"To any personnel hearing this! the Klingons are attempting to use our transporters! Cut the power to them!" they were all moving out of the room in an instant. "Damn it! where the hell are they trans-ing to! Security to bridge, the Klingons have used the transporter system, port transporter room secured." Matt breathed a sigh of relief, that relief evaporating as they all realized that the bridge didn't respond. "Bridge, how copy my last?!" before more could be said, a new voice joined the channel.

"This is Commander Horst! The enemy has transported to the bridge! All available hands, get there on the double!" they could hear the sounds of Disruptor shots intermixed with the commander's call, not one saying a word before they took off for the bridge.

* * *

Spencer fought to stay in control of his breath, rushing past hallways and bulkheads as fast as his legs could carry him. they were only one turn away from the bridge, rounding the corner to find the commander standing alone amongst several bodies outside the bridge door, both Klingon and human. He was holding a Klingon weapon, waving them over as soon as he saw them.

"Come on! We need to secure the bridge!" Spencer didn't bother responding, still sprinting when something hit the back of his legs, slamming him to the floor. His eyes watered from the pain radiating from his face. Before he could have the thought of seeing what brought him down, he heard a disruptor shot, a scream nearly covering up a compression phaser shot, and the sound of bodies hitting the floor. He rolled over, clutching his nose to find Matt lying on his back, Kei and Spencer had apparently brought down by him, a Klingon corpse down the hall from them still smoking from the phaser round ripping through him.

"Fu-ch vhat hurv!" Kei rolled her eyes at Spencer as he felt the area under his nose, confirming his suspicion as blood was running quite freely from it. she was propped up on her elbows, seeming no worse for wear from the likely equally hard impact. Her eyes slid away from the two of them, Spencer seeing them widen at something behind him. "Vhav ish ith!?" what little color her face still had seemed to drain away as she scrambled to her feet, heading for the bridge door. That's when his eyes fell on the commander, who was sinking to the floor, clutching at his throat to try and stop the blood that was pouring from it. he gave Kei one last pained look before his eyes seemed to glaze over.

"Come on! We gotta secure the bridge! On me!" Spencer felt riveted to the spot, almost ignoring Hawk's words. "Spencer! Get off your god damned ass!" he glanced up, seeing that Kei was already trying to settle herself, standing beside the door switch, Hawk standing across from her. he scrambled to grab his rifle and slipped in behind him, deciding a simple nod was enough. Matt quickly nodded as well, but this time to Kei. She activated the door, Matt throwing his arm out to stop himself and Spencer, spencer feeling his face burn as a pair of disruptor rounds ripped past his face, temporarily blinding him with their green flashes. Almost as soon as the moment had come, it was gone, Hawk launching through the door with Spencer right behind him. both opened fire almost immediately upon entering, Spencer firing very short spurts of beam energy at the blown out door across from them, Hawk unleashing the fully automatic fury of his weapon into the gaping doorway. "Jen, frag, now!" Spencer went wide eyed, dropping behind one of the consoles as Kei pulled a grenade off of her belt, tossing it through the door before both of them dropped behind one of the flight consoles, most of the bridge crew already hiding from Klingon fire. The grenade detonated, reverberating through the ship. Hawk and Spencer were instantly moving stepping through the door to find what little remained of the Klingons that had been on the other side, a sight that made Spencer puke. Hawk on the other hand only grimaced, but Spencer knew him well enough to know the sight disgusted him too. Spencer just guessed that he had seen worse, given the way he acted from time to time. With out a word both of them returned to the bridge, finding it a mess. There were burns all over the walls and consoles, several of the consoles likely inoperative at this time. Half the bridge crew was wounded in some way, Rei and Wash already crouched over the captain. Kei had moved over by T, who had a black burn through her leg, her greenish blood leaking out as she groaned in pain. The sensor officer was lying on her back, moaning as her entire body quivered, a spot on her stomach being soaked a deep red, contrasting sharply with her grey uniform. Spencer was at her in an instant, his weapon clattering to the floor as he started putting pressure on her stomach.

"Helv mth!" Hawkins had seemed to have completely frozen, his eyes bouncing between the corpses across the bridge, as well as the wounded. "Hawth!" Spencer, as screwed up as his voice sounded right now, finally seemed to break him out of his trance. He was still completely pale, but he snapped over to beside Spencer, pulling a pouch off his left side, opeing it to reveal it as filled with primitive combat meds.

"K-Keep pressure. H-ere. U-ss-se th-is." His was was shaking like crazy as he handed Spencer a roll of gauze, Spencer quickly pressing it on the wound. "T-talk t-to h-er. Try to k-keep her calm." He was shaking like crazy, seeming to be much worse anytime he looked at the blood leaking into the gauze, slowly soaking it. Spencer nodded to him, him suddenly standing and tapping commands into his wrist Padd. "All hands, we need medical teams to the bridge ASAP!" Spencer's attention returned to the red head beneath him, instantly speaking.

"Othay, uh.." he froze for a second, trying to remember her name. "Haley, rigth?" he nearly cheered when she nodded. "Do you underthsthanth me?" he noticed that he was at least gaining some control to his voice again, although he still didn't didn't sound right.

"Y-our… your n-ose. It…. it's ble-eding." She tired to reach up and touch his face, Spencer managing to grab her hand without releasing pressure and gently lay it back at her side.

"Isth fine! Thalk tho me. How arth thou feeling?" she seemed extremely pale, almost unfocused.

"I'm c-c-cold. Rea-really cold." His mind was racing, trying to figure out what to do. An idea sparked in his mind and he ripped his top off, leaving him in a skin tight t-shirt as he did his best to wrap her smaller frame in the shirt before resuming pressure on her stomach.

"thorry, canth do more rigth now." she was still shaking like crazy, Spencer starting to panic when she didn't respond again. "Haley! Keeth thalking tho me! Where arth you from!?" she had a look of mild concentration for a second before she spoke again, her voice much weaker, now, but seemed to not be shaking as much.

"B-brooklyn, New York. Lived there…. Lived there as lo…." She blinked several times, seeming to have more and more trouble talking. "As long as…. As I can remember…." She wasn't looking at him at all anymore, just staring off at the ceiling. He quickly pulled one of his hands away from her stomach, gently grabbing her hand. that seemed to get her attention again as he spoke, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

"Hey, come on, sthay with me!" he didn't even realize that he was starting to cry, feeling her hand go limp in his. "Haley, come on…. Sayth something!" he felt more than saw Hawk rushing back over, holding something in his hands. Spencer didn't fight as his hand was pulled away from her stomach, unable to pull his eyes from her now cold and lifeless stare. His body shuddered for a second, wanting nothing more than to look away, but he couldn't find the strength to even blink. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Hawk's panicked expression melt into anger as the older man saw that she was no longer bleeding, standing up only to scream out a swear word, slamming his fist into the wall. That seemed to be enough to break what ever had a hold on Spencer, Spencer shakily standing up. Hawk was now leaning his forehead up against the wall, his hands resting above his head. One hand was holding a hypospray, likely holding something that might have saved her life. The glove on his other hand was starting to tinge red, blood leaking out of the fingerless gloves from his knuckles.

"Where's Commander Horst!?" Spencer glanced up at Morikawa, seeing the fear evident in every face on the bridge. Everyone seemed to be looking to him. as if he something he didn't want to happen had happened.

"He's dead." Hawkins was the one to speak, his voice quiet, slightly muffed from his position, but still rang clear across the empty bridge.

"Armstrong….. the captain…. He's…." Wash was speaking, his voice cracking and dying out as he tried to speak, Spencer finishing for him.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Wash and Rei both nodded, Spencer mentally cursing to himself. _Looks I'm the captain now._ he shuddered at that thought, the weight of knowing that every life on the ship now rested squarely on his shoulders. _I can not let them down! No matter what!_ He took one look at Hawkins, still leaning against the wall and shaking uncontrollably, letting his eyes sweep the room from there. Every other face was turned toward him alone, except for Kei, who seemed to have split her focus with T, Hawk, and Spencer. He took a deep breath, trying to control his voice and speak as clearly and confidently as he could. "Clear the corpthes from the bridge, geth the wounded tho medical. I wanth engineers gething mithon critical stathions online, and I wanted that yethterday! Hawth, thake Sensors, Kei, on comths. Nitha, Wasth, man your stathions!" the roomed echoed with 'aye-aye sir's, chilling spencer in a way that he could never describe. _Now let's go get this son of bitch._


	5. All too Familiar

**Hey, finally back at this story, took me a while, sorry. anyway, time to start delving into one character's past, finishing introducing him! Also, since Star Trek gave me the window, you could say this is not an AU star trek, merely a different timeline, like the Kelvine timeline**

* * *

Matt tried to focus on the sensor screen, having rebooted the system twice to no avail. It seemed like the ramming had severely damaged the sensors, not even able to detect the larger asteroids now. they had an engineering crew looking into it, but as far as they could tell, they were flying blind. And the threat of the Klingon vessel coming back kept the crews from going outside and fixing the sensor arrays.

"Thanks Doc. Now get back to medical." Matt glanced up at the sound of Spencer's voice, which was sounding almost normal now that his nose had been set back into place, seeing the strange alien doctor. He looked almost human, except for his skin being entirely blue and having two antenna sticking straight up from his head. He also had a very wide handlebar mustache, coupled with a small Goa tee, all of his hair being stark white. With out a word, the doctor stood, gathering up his medical tools. Before he could leave, spencer was speaking again. "and Gazot? Get me casualty and death number as soon as you can get one." The doctor nodded and left, Matt letting his attention return to his screen. It wasn't long before images started flooding his mind, both old and new. All of them were people he couldn't save, from the sensor officer, to the commander and so many more he couldn't even think to name them all. _Come on, focus! Cant get distracted now!_ almost on cue with that thought, Matt felt someone tap his elbow, his every instinct screaming to take a swing to defend himself. That instinct evaporated as he turned to see Jenifer standing beside him, a worried look in her eye's.

"Matt….. are you….okay?" she seemed hesitant to speak, and Matt couldn't help but notice how scared she looked. he just stared at her for a few seconds, Jenifer speaking up again before. "Your crying Matt." Shocked, Matt started to reach up and touch his face, stopping when he saw the blood on his hands. Even with the bandage now swathing his right hand, he could still see the sensor officers blood, still lurking in the cracks and nooks of his skin and fingers. he closed his eyes for a second, knowing he was most definitely crying now.

"I-I'm okay." She glared at him, her hands on her hips.

"Like hell you are! I've never seen yo-" Matt cut her voice off by suddenly taking a step toward her, wrapping his arms around her chest as he pulled her into an embrace, one that oddly felt right, even with how much he hated being touched. _I almost lost her too…. Damn it! I need to stop fucking up!_ He felt her arms go around him, not tensing up like he usually would. "Matt?" he could tell how shocked she was, the one whispered word sounding absolutely confused.

"We almost lost you Jen. We almost lost T too. i…. I cant lose you guys." He felt her gently squeeze him as she responded, very quietly.

"You won't Matt." She gingerly let go of him, Matt reluctantly releasing his own grip on her so she could take a step back. She was opening her mouth to say more when Spencer's voice carried over to them.

"Hey guys! Are our radiological sensors still running?" Matt glanced his way, seeing that he was too busy playing with the command chair's functions to look at them. They both moved over to one of the science consoles, Matt watching as Jenifer brought it up.

"As far as we can tell, yeah. we got a pretty big spike of what looks like plasma and one of radiation. Both in the same spot." Matt raised an eyebrow as Spencer cheered.

"Guide us to that! Ninja, get our weapons ready to fire!" Matt watched as Jenifer placed the location of the radiation on screen, showing it around twenty kilometers away, further down the comet's tail. It didn't take them long to get a line of sight on the location, spencer instantly speaking up again. "Wash, don't head straight for the spike. Smalls, tell me if it moves. Ninja, be ready to fire, but do not lock weapons yet." They all acknowledged, the distance counter slowly counting down, until the radiation spike turned into a ship, the war bird materializing as it decloaked. Rei was way ahead of everyone, firing pulse phasers and phasers alike. Bolts of orangish red energy zipped across space alongside beams, the ships shields not coming up in time to block the shots. The beams ripped into the ship, slowly working on cutting the ship apart as phase blasts tore the hull into ribbons. The enemy ship suddenly detonated, a cheer ripping across the bridge. "Hell yeah! scratch one enemy vessel! Helm, plot a course for the Vega system. Comms, as soon as you can contact command, let me know. We gotta warn them about this." Matt let his eyes close, falling back against the console before sliding down into a sitting position. No matter how hard he tried to stop it, he was shaking to a point that he couldn't even think of standing. His eyes opened as the intercom went off, the bridge silencing.

"Doctor Gazot to bridge, thirty three KIA, fifty two WIA, four MIA, twenty eight ready for duty. A good number of the wounded are on their feet and assisting with repairs as we speak. You should send any injured on the bridge down for treatment now, yourself included, Captain Armstrong." Matt watched as Spencer seemed lost in thought, Matt doing his best to wipe moister from his eyes, something that was a lot harder than even he thought it would be.

"Alright, you heard him. if you've been injured, to the med bay." Morikawa stood, coughing into his hands in a familiar and very raspy sort of fashion, nearly falling over. If matt had to guess, he had broken or cracked ribs. The only people on the bridge that seemed uninjured were the pilot and himself. "Matt, you hit?" Matt startled slightly as Spencer spoke to him, hoping he wasn't crying anymore. "You hit buddy?" Matt shook his head, knowing that although bruised and sore, he hadn't been injured during the fighting. "Alright, you have the conn. Let me know if something happens, keep trying to reach command." Matt shakily nodded and stood, realizing that himself, Jenifer, spencer, and the pilot were the only ones on the bridge now. "You are good, right Hawk?" Matt nodded again, shooing Spencer toward the door.

"I-I'm fine. Go get looked at." Spencer gave Matt one last concerned look before he left, Jenifer stepping up beside him. one glance at her concerned face was too much for him to bear." I-I'm f-f-fine." He felt her hand very gently touch his shoulder, instantly shying away from her.

"You don't act like it. it's scary to be perfectly honest." Matt steeled himself for a second, putting up a composed front to show the world, only taking a second to bring it on.

"I'll be fine jen. Just go get that leg looked at. Knowing you three are alright is all I need right now." he tried to smile winningly at her, but he could feel his front failing. Something about her and the others always could shatter any front he tried to put between himself and others.

"Okay. I'll be back soon." Matt nodded, his eyes following her as she left. Image after image tried to flood his mind of his past. _Not now! I gotta be focused! They are counting on me!_

* * *

T'Vrell watched as crew members shuffled around the med bay, there being so many wounded that the small bay was overflowing with people, some injured by weapons fire, some from the ramming of the enemy vessel. It had caused several power conduits to overload, causing numerous injuries across the ship. most were minor but some were much worse. There were so many dead on the ship that they had to store bodies in one of the cargo bays. Only a handful of the tactical forces even survived, a team from engineering having wiped out the remaining Klingons in the port transporter room, albeit with heavy casualties. She gingerly slipped off the bed she was on, feeling a sharp stab of pain through her thigh. Even though the tissue had been bonded back together, it still hurt, and likely would for a while. She winced as she started moving for the door, seeing it open for members of the bridge crew to start trickling through, Spencer and Jenifer the last ones to enter. Spencer's face was covered with blood, and his uniform top was missing, left in his black skin tight shirt. Kei was covered in carbon, one of her legs bandaged.

"Hey T, you doing good?" she nodded in response to Spencers question.

"the wound is surprisingly minor. Merely painful. How bad are your injuries?" he shrugged Jenifer, sitting on the same bed T'Vrell just vacated.

"We're fine. I just got tagged by shrapnel, and Matt kinda slammed Spence face first into the deck. Doc already set his nose back, just needs to make sure it stays put I guess." Jenifer shrugged and winced, clearly bothered by the injury on her leg.

"Is Matt…" Jenifer spoke before T'Vrell could finish, cutting her off almost violently.

"He's fine, despite his best efforts. We got the Klingons too." T'Vrell nodded, instantly turning to head to the bridge.

"Uh, T, where ya going?" she barely turned back toward him, too focused on where she was going to actually look at Spencer.

"Returning to my station. I assume we have yet to make contact with command, Acting Captain." she didn't wait for a response, stepping out into the hallway. It didn't take her long to reach the bridge, grimacing as she entered. The entire bridge was a mess, with burns and pools of blood everywhere. A pair of engineers were working on the consoles, the pilot busy using a sterilization kit to clean blood off the plating. Matt seemed to be focused on controlling the ship, using the pilot's console to guide the ship free of the asteroids. She raised an eyebrow at this, the pilot standing to stretch and noticing her. he seemed to also notice the raised eyebrow and who she was looking at, slipping over beside her.

"Any time he looks at the blood, he starts shaking like crazy. Told him to fly the ship while I clean it up. Leg okay?" she nodded, stepping toward Matt after the pilot spoke, leaving him to return to what he had been doing.

"Matt. Ship handling well?" he glanced back at her, smiling ever so slightly for the barest trace of a second, a flash of relief crossing his face.

"She's pulling to the right a little. Engineers are saying the right nacelle took some damage. Got it shut down. Still got no warp capabilities either." She nodded and gently pat his shoulder, feeling his muscles tense up at the touch.

"Are you having trouble?" his dark grey eyes glanced at her, a genuinely confused expression on his face. "With the fighting that is. It's safe to assume that you have been in a few…. Rough scenarios before. Traumatic incidents tend to come back in our minds during periods of strife." He rolled his eyes at her, his attention refocusing on bringing the ship out of the comet's tail. He gently maneuvered past one last asteroid, opening them back up to the black void of space.

"I'm fine T." his voice stopped as he opened up the ships internal communications. "Bridge to engineering, do we have Warp yet?" she waited patiently for a voice to respond, a female voice spilling out of the bridge speakers.

"Maybe!? I'm not sure! I'm neck deep in our Warp core right now! a couple guys are prepping to head out and see whats up with the Nacelle right now! diagnostic says no!" there was a lot of background noise in what ever room she was in, her voice barely audible even though it was clear that the woman was shouting.

"Thanks Jessica. Keep me updated." There was a near instant explosion of noise from the other side of the speaker.

"Jessica!? The hell do you think you are, a butler!? It's jess or Jessie damn it! no one ever calls me Jessica, not even you soldier boy!" he just shrugged and shut the intercom off, T'Vrell watching him as he glanced at the blood on the floor, staring at it for a second or so before his body shook, his eyes closing.

"T, can you check the comms please?" she noticed that his attention was now entirely focused on a local area grid on the console before him, T'Vrell quickly moving to the comms console. It didn't take her long to run a systems check on it, quickly finding that the system was damaged.

"We can receive, how ever, we can not transmit." She heard him sigh as the intercom rattled across with the same female voice from earlier.

"Yo soldier boy! Give the Warp drive a stroke or two, lemme know how she feels!" she barely heard Matt mutter something about revolting language before the ship lurched, the stars ahead of them elongating before they disappeared altogether. "Alright, she's going, keep it at a limp up there! We'll blow the nacelle off if we push her too hard right now!" he typed a few more commands into the system as the pilot suddenly spoke up.

"well, that's the last of the blood. I'll leave the scoring to the grease monkeys. Out of my chair please and thank you!" he practically shoved Matt from the pilot's seat, although Matt hardly seemed to complain, instead firing the intercom up.

"Hawk to medical, Spence, ship is moving and back on course to the Vega system. Should only be an hour or two before we get there. Comms still down." There was no response over the intercom, leaving the bridge in silence. At least, until the comms station blared out that it was receiving a transmission on the emergency band. _This is not turning out as a very good first voyage, if we even survive it._

* * *

Spencer rushed for the bridge, nearly slamming into the door as it slid open, Kei and Morikawa right behind him. he was speaking as soon as he entered, a static filled image dominating the view screen.

"What's going on?!" T'Vrell held up a finger, typing a few more commands into her console before the static cleared enough for an image to come through. Spencer could barely recognize what looked like an older woman on the screen.

"-ed immediate assistance! We're under attack from the Borg! They…. They're assimilating the entire colony!" Spencer stopped at the captain's chair, slapping the mute for the main screen so he could speak.

"Do we have comms?" T'Vrell shook her head, his attention turning toward the pilot, who was instantly speaking.

"We're pushing the ship as hard as we can. Should be arriving in two minutes, if our engine doesn't blow out."

"Rei, charge weapons, shields up! Matt, get sensors u-" Matt cut him off before he could continue, his grip tight on his rifle.

"Sensors have already been diverted to Rei's control." Spencer nodded, his gaze focusing forward as the mainscreen was cleared, going back to it's normal forward view. The next couple minutes seemed to last a lifetime as the ship ripped through space. The silence of the room was broken by the pilots voice, the entire room seeming to take a deep breath at the same time.

"Decelerating in five… four… three… two… one!" the ship lurched again, a massive green world seeming to appear out of nowhere, along with a velvety black star field. The bridge was instantly filled with a warning alarm, a sensor readout highlighting a borg probe off in the distance. The ship looked almost like a mechanical box, eerie by every definition of the word. It was at least three times their size.

"get transporters ready, beam out anyone and everyone down there!" Spencer barely had enough time to finish speaking before Morikawa was speaking.

"We wont be able to lock onto anything down there. Too much energy and movement." Matt instantly followed Morikawa up, the only one in the room to seem at all calm.

"I'll take Kei and go set some pattern enhancers up. That should let the transporters get a lock." He was already moving, Kei following When Spencer placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

"I'm coming with you." Spencer nearly shivered in fear when he saw the look of nearly unbridled rage in Matt's eyes, Matt responding very quietly.

"No. you need to be up here, taking on that ship. no one is leaving this rock if you cant kill it." Spencer sighed, knowing he was right, but not liking it anyway.

"Take whoever is left of the security team with you then. The two of you would be overwhelmed before you can do anything if you don't." Matt shook his head at spencer's words, his anger seeming to have vanished.

"Quite the opposite. A smaller team will draw less attention. We'll be fine spence, just give us a boat to come back too." Spencer nodded, letting the two of the leave the bridge. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to center himself before diving into the task at hand.

"Alright, as soon as they have been beamed down, I want you guys to unload on that ship. Wash, you let that son of a bitch tag us and we're dead." He keyed up the intercom, barely hearing Rei and Wash respond as he spoke to the ship as a whole.

"All hands, prepare for evasive maneuvers! All hands, battle stations!"

* * *

Jenifer slipped into the starboard transporter room, instantly diverting from the transporter pads to the arms locker beside them, inputting her pass key to open it. she quickly selected a long ranged compression rifle, much like Matt's rifle, but longer and with a much lower rate of fire, trading that for a scope and considerably more power per shot. She had found the weapon in the armory and had moved it to the Transporter room's armory on purpose, intending to use it if she was ever sent on an away team mission. She still had Spencer's Phaser pistol, which she had tucked into her holster.

"Ready Jen?" she glanced up at matt and nodded, stepping up beside him on the transporter pad. He already had a back pack with the pattern enhancers packed into it, enough to create a sizable area to transport colonists from. She gulped as the transporter whined to life, knowing what was coming. She was blinded by an incredibly bright light as she had the most peculiar tickle like sensation coat every bit of her body, inside and out. When the light faded away, she was standing on the surface of the planet, the sky above blazed red by fires and black smoke, blotting out whatever sky they should have been able to see. Without a word, they began to move down the hill they had been beamed on to, toward the sizable colony below. From here, they could easily see that most of the colony was already gone, a small section on the far side not crawling in Borg technology. Judging by the fact that everything seemed to be moving that way, it was a pretty safe bet that the remaining colonists were over there. With out a word, the two of them pressed forward, down into the eerie empty streets. There were several bodies littering the ground, some being the cyberneticly changed borg, the majority being civilians. All were eerily quiet as they moved through the town, Kei glancing at Matt several times. He was as pale as a ghost, his knuckles bright white from the death grip he had on his weapon. She was looking at him when he suddenly waved her toward a building corner on her side of the street, Kei instantly ducking behind it as he did the same with a building on his side. She gave him a puzzled look as he raised a single finger toward his mouth, shouldering his weapon and aiming it almost at the corner, slowly stepping out so that his weapon was pointed at every new thing he saw. She watched him as he did this, a technique he called pieing for some reason. His attention returned to her, releasing the front of his weapon to hold up three fingers for her. she nodded, knowing what he meant by that before she stepped out, pressing the side of her weapon on the wall to help keep it stable. Three of the unclothed Cyborgs were moving down the street, implanted and changed to a point that they had no real recognizable features beyond being roughly humanoid. Two had their arms replaced with what looked like disruptors, the third carrying a borg rifle of some sort. "Now!" at Matt's shout, she aimed and fired, aiming for one of the cyborgs head. His weapon fired a fully automatic burst alongside her shot, Kei seeing the drone she had aimed for slump toward the ground, it's head literally blown off. One of the others had been hit by several of Matt's shots, tearing holes through it before it collapsed to the ground, twitching and moving like it was still trying to move. The third was hit by one of the phaser rounds, putting a hole in its thigh and forcing it to a knee. Kei quickly fired again, sighing in relief as her shot ripped through it's chest, the drone slumping to the ground.

"Well, that's three down." She tried to sound optimistic, but she already was dreading what they were more than likely facing. Matt was silent, jogging forward to the one borg that was still moving before he slammed his foot on it's chest, pinning it down before firing a burst into it's head.

"We gotta move. No way in hell did these borg not alert the others." She nodded and gulped, quickly following him away from the area, zig-zagging through the streets of the colony. Before too long, they found themselves entering a large open air market, most of the stalls that had once stood being smashed and burning. There was a crater near the center of the plaza that a massive borg antennae like structure was sticking up out of. Corpses littered the plaza, almost four dozen Borg wandering the area. Not one seemed to have noticed them yet, seeming to be combing the dead and dying for any they could add to the collective. Jenifer looked to Matt, hoping he would already be thinking of a way to slip past them. what she saw caused her stomach to drop out. Matt had gone completely pale, his weapon dangling loosely in his hands, almost falling out in fact, his mouth opened wide in horror. His eyes were bouncing between each of the corpses in a rapid panicked movement.

"M-Matt?" he was shaking un controllably, raising the weapon up to his shoulder and taking aim. In an instant, her instincts saw what he was going to do, moving to stop him from opening fire, but it was too late. Before she could even take a step toward him, he had begun firing, screaming profanities at the top of his lungs.

* * *

 _Five years prior_

 _"Come on Matt! You know we aren't supposed to be here! I'm supposed to be at school, and don't you have work?!" Matt smirked at the younger voice behind him, spinning around while still walking in the same direction._

 _"So what? Whats the fun if there aint a little risk? Come on Barry, it'll be fine! Besides, Caitlyn will be there." Matt gave the younger male a knowing smirk, the kids exact thoughts being as clear as day to matt. As much as Barry, a small techy kid who knew computer code better than half the colony, was never much one for breaking the rules, the scraggily male was still a guy, so the chance to impress the gal that caught his eye was an easy way to convince him to do anything. Barry was seventeen, just two years younger than Matt. And where Matt had left school and started working around the small spaceport, doing random jobs from helping the mechanics, to helping maintain ships to running cargo and messages between the staff, Barry was still in school. Although almost polar opposites, Matt being an adventurous dare devil, always pulling pranks and pushing the rules to their breaking points, with Barry usually toed the line as he was told, the two had been surprisingly great friends since Barry had started highschool. Barry wasn't short for his age, but he was one of those people who could not put on weight, muscle or otherwise, leaving him to be a tiny person compared to a good portion of his class. Most of the inhabitants for the colony were farmers, Matt's family being one of the few exceptions. Matt's father had been a mechanic in Starfleet, primarily working on shuttle craft. Skills which were now being put to use at the local space port._

 _"Then we better be careful! If we get caught, or worse, some animal eats us, I'll never hear the end of it from your mother." Matt just smirked, spinning on the spot and continuing on, deeper into the forest. It didn't take long for the pair to arrive at their destination, a waterfall straight into a deep pond, the river virtually stopped. the water was clean and not clouded at all, most of the surface under the water being rock and heavy sand, not being easily moved by the water and keeping it clean. There were already half a dozen others around a portable grill and open topped rover, a cooler in the back filled with food and drinks, most of those drinks being a local alcoholic set of beverages they colony would trade with passing folk. It was a gal named Adrianna's birthday, and to celebrate, they had decided to take her out here. Matt and Berry had been hiking out, as a cover for their families so they wouldn't suspect what the pair were doing, Matt managing to convince both of sets of parents to let the pair ditch work and school for the day. The duo was up on a ridge above the small beach the others had parked on, a frantically waving Adrianna getting Matt's attention. She was slightly shorter them him, with short black hair and green eyes, her smooth features almost boyish in some ways, and yet she was still a gorgeous girl. Matt waved back to her, not doing much more as he focused on moving down the hill to them. the other three of the group were all friends, a farmer, Joseph, who although much more heavily muscled than Matt, couldv'e passed as Matt's brown eyed twin. Another of the group was the small and very quiet Caitlyn. She had long curly orange tinted hair, running down past her shoulders, matching with her very soft and delicate features perfectly. She was the youngest of the group, and was probably one of the nicest and most easily embarrassed people Matt had ever met. She instantly flushed upon seeing Barry, a small smirk crossing Matt's face. Matt had known through Adrianna that the gal had a crush on barry for longer than Matt had been on the planet, Barry being too much of a social idiot and coward to ask her out over the years. The final member of the group, Parker, was the oldest, just a couple months older than Matt. He was wiry, but strong, and cracked jokes near constantly, his blonde hair and light blue eye's seeming perfect alongside his constant smirk._

 _"Took you two long enough! We've already started grilling!" Matt smiled at Adrianna's shout, hugging her and kissing her cheek as soon as he could._

 _"well, we don't have a nice fancy new rover to roll around in, do we birthday girl? How's it feel being eighteen?" she rolled her eye's, Matt seeing a foot ball flying at the two of them from the corner of his eye, to which he instantly reacted to, catching the ball with Adri's arms still around his neck. "Seriously guys, talking here!" he haphazardly chucked the ball back their way, nailing Joe right in the crotch, to which most of the group burst out laughing at._

 _"Huh, feels pretty well the same as seventeen, their still idiots, Barry and Cait are still awkward, and I still question why I'm dating you?" Matt rolled his eyes, about to kiss her again in response when the high pitched screech of an engine filled the area, a small hodgepodge shuttle ripping overhead. There was a heavy boom, silencing all of the laughter as another followed, shaking the ground. Smoke was already rising above the trees in the direction of the main colony, two more ships screeching by as the group stared in utter shock._

* * *

Matt felt someone barrel into him, and just in time as green plasma bolts ripped by, the intense heat burning at his skin. He had dropped several Borg in his short burst of fire, but the several dozens in the market had all reacted. Several more bolts ripped over as Matt slammed onto the ground, Kei now lying on top of him. he didn't even look at her as he shoved her off, rolling into a prone firing position and returning fire.

"Matt! We have to run! We cant win this!" he tried to ignore her, but her voice sounded so terrified, so pained, that it was overpowering the rage boiling in his body. Several more of the borg dropped under the barrage he had unleashed from his weapon, most of the group not having a clear line of fire on the two of them. It was the only reason they weren't dead yet. _Come on! Don't be stupid! Don't make the same mistakes again!_

"Kei, that collapsed building, go, I'll cover!" she nodded, Matt returning to firing on any borg shooting at them. Unlike organic opponents, his near misses didn't faze them at all, even hits not doing much more then rock them back, unless he hit something vital. He breathed a sigh of relief when she began firing, her shots vastly more accurate than his own, taking off limbs and heads with incredible accuracy. He took that as his que, keeping his weapon generally facing the enemy as he continued to fire, getting to his feet with one hand. as soon as he was on his feet, he was moving, knowing he was drawing dangerously close to overheating his weapon. His left hand burned as he gripped the fore grip, even the sophisticated heat displacing technology in the weapon being unable to keep the heat from bleeding through, even his firing hand beginning to warm up. He felt several plasma bolts rip dangerously close before he managed to scramble into the ruined building. Holes were being torn in the thin metal siding of the prefabricated structure by weapons fire. Without a word, the two of them ran through the rubble, hunched over to make as small of targets as possible. Even still, the plasma bolts were ripping by far closer than he'd like. It was a miracle that neither of them had been hit yet. They were suddenly on street again, whipping past corners and away from the plaza, both running on pure adrenaline. They almost ran straight into a group of colonists, one raising a small defensive phaser, only to instantly lower it.

"StarFleet!?" the group was clearly shocked, the armed one being the one to speak, his salt and pepper beard and hair seeming to match his grease and dirt smudged overall's. Matt was gasping for breath as he nearly collapsed right there, Kei slumping against a wall.

"Yeah… we… We're here to get yall out… got a… got a spot you colonists might mass at?" Matt was fighting with his breath as he tried to speak.

"Yeah, there's a shelter on this side of town. If their still kicking, that's where the people would be." Matt nodded, gesturing toward the mechanic to lead the way.

"We'll cover, just lead us there." The mechanic nodded, beckoning what looked to be his family after him, the children and wife all looking absolutely terrified, Matt smiling to them to try and comfort them.

"you guys are gonna be fine, we promise." Kei had evidently regained her breath, stepping up beside Matt as she spoke, smiling to them as well. The mechanic sighed grabbing his wife's hand and pulling her after him, the children following. The pair exchanged a nod before following, trying to keep an eye behind them.


	6. Borg Troubles

**here's to hoping some of these new introductions lighten the mood a tad! anyway, story is still chugging along!**

* * *

Spencer grabbed the sides of the command chair, despite being strapped in. the ship was being rocked again as a green disruptor beam glanced off the shielding. The view screen ahead of him was currently spinning as Wash corkscrewed the ship, trying to keep from being hit.

"Damn it Wash! Quit letting them hit us!" the pilot didn't even glance back from his screens, focused on flying.

"In case you had not noticed, they have only _glanced_ us, other wise, we would be dead right now!" Spencer glared at the pilot, instantly speaking again.

"How are we doing Rei!" red beams and bolts were ripping away from the ship as fast as the weapons could fire, making near constant streams of fire. Each shot was reverberating through the ship as they slammed into the larger enemy ship.

"Shields are down to thirty percent, forward only! Enemy ship is down to seven, but they keep reinforcing! Done some damage to their hull but nothing major, torpedo tube is jammed! Sustained vibration damage to a lot of systems, weapons are nearly overheated, three hull breaches from containment failure!" Spencer cursed about to speak when a streak of light appeared on the viewscreen, behind the borg probe. Almost on que with it, a small box appeared in the corner of the viewscreen, showing a rusting and hodgepodge romulan bridge, a female centered in the image. She was wearing a simple grey shirt and loose light brown jacket, both looking fairly ragged, as well as deep red thin scarf wrapped around her neck. She had long unkempt brown hair, only parting around her face and her angular ears.

"To whom ever is sending out a distress signal, this is Kerina of the R.R.W. Hope…" her voice dropped off as a new voice came through the speakers, too muffed and static filled to make out. "Borg!" She had gone wide eyed, staring at someone offscreen.

"T, get me comms with them!" he barely heard her response as the ship was rocked again.

"Shielding offline! Severe hull damage! No breeches, several sub systems down, rerouting through secondaries!" Spencer ignored the call from Rei, trying to not puke from the spinning view screen as he focused on the comm call, the view beyond it spinning and dancing as Wash maneuvered the ship. a small text appeared below the box, labeled as transmitting, letting Spencer know that they were now transmitting on that frequency.

"Kerina! I need you to lock and fire on that borg ship, everything you got! We got their attention and most of their shielding down, just finish them!" the Romulan looked instantly shocked, likely not just because of the shouted order, but she was likely now receiving a live stream of the Gallants ragged bridge.

"You heard him! launch torpedos, bring us about and lock disruptors!" there was a green flash on other side of the enemy ship, growing in intensity for a few seconds before a blast rocked the enemy ship. it's shielding flared and died, the ship starting to list lazily away from the Gallant, it's lack of fire allowing the Gallant to stop moving, it's weapons tearing at the hull of the enemy ship. several seconds later, the ship detonated, Spencer breathing a sigh of relief.

"Status!?" he called the question without thinking, not realizing the comm line was still open.

"Shielding is still offline, topside pulse phaser is offline, initial checks say it's fired from overheating, port phaser bank and torpedo tube inoperative. Bottom side pulse turret damaged, but functional, starboard phaser overheated but operable. LADAR is all we got for sensors." Spencer groaned as Rei spoke, knowing that meant most of their firepower was gone, and with no shields and no weapons, an old ship like this one might as well be a wet paper bag. A reddish brown Dhelan Warbird drifted up to their ship, a few small burns on the vessel, almost looking like it had just left a fight itself.

"Sound like you guys got your ass's handed to you. Who are you guys?" the smooth voice returned as the female Romulan spoke, regaining Spencer's attention.

"Acting Captain Armstrong of the U.S.S. Gallant. Thanks for the help Hope." She seemed to be studying the screen quite intensely as Spencer spoke. She had very light brown eyes and tanned skin, and classically romulan angular features, actually reminding Spencer of T'Vrell a little in that regard.

"Pleasure. We're here to help, what's going on here?" Spencer sighed, several images bouncing through his mind of the previous engagement that he had to force down.

"Borg invasion. We have a ground team securing survivors now, could use a ship watching our backs while we repair and refit what we can and get our guys back safe." The romulan smiled to him, crossing her arms.

"Alright. We got your backs." Spencer sighed in relief as the com line cut, just no longer being alone being worth more than any words he could speak.

"Alright, Flight Status?" he heard Wash groan, the three sixty holo dropping as he turned the chair around.

"Bad. Starboard Nacelle blew out, cant make warp. Impulse engines are running hot, but steady. Lost some thrusters in that last hit, so she's pulling a bit, doesn't want to fly straight." Spencer nodded, releasing the harness on the chair, finding his body was shaking like crazy.

"Captain, I have managed to reroute our comm system, should have enough power for a subspace transmission, I'm already preparing a distress beacon. Should have much better range than what we received." He nodded to her, his attention returning to the main screen. An alert flashed as a communication started being received on a federation channel.

"Hawkins to Gallant, we have the pattern enhancers up and ready, somewhere between three and five hundred civies down here! Got a lot of activity down here, be nice to get the hell out!" he could hear phaser fire, both beam and pulse, over the call, instantly speaking.

"Some one get our transporters going!" before he could say more, the Romulan appeared on the screen again, having gone pale.

"I hope you're done back there, because we have two Borg Sphere's in system and heading this way, and something massive on long range!" Spencer cursed as he slumped back into his seat. _Will this day ever end!?_

* * *

 _Five years prior_

 _Matt kept having to bounce his foot between the gas and the brake on the rover, very glad for the safety harness as they bounced along the trail at dangerous speeds. Having been used to odd jobs at the space port, he had driven a lot of rovers cross country, even flown some of the shuttles to deliver supplies to a research station out in the wild lands, and as such was the best driver of their group of friends. They had been on the overgrown and unused trail for nearly an hour, hearing the hodgpoge fighters whip over head every few minutes. Not one person dared to speak right now, the entire group pale with fear. They were maybe twenty minutes out from the space port, the trees ending a few dozen meters from the concrete landing area. Matt couldn't stop his pounding heart at what he was about to find, hoping the colony still existed, and that someone had survived. The ships had stopped going over half an hour ago, more than likely having left. Those twenty minutes seemed to drag by, Matt bringing the rover to a stop while they were still deep in the trees, unable to see the colony._

 _"we should leave the rover here, just in case. Barry, Caitlyn, Adri, you three should stay with the rover." Matt barely looked at the three as he spoke, knowing they were the least able to defend themselves should something happen. Barry and Cailtlyn instantly nodded from the bed of the rover, sitting in a pair of inward facing seats. Adrianna was in the passenger seat and was already glaring at Matt._

 _"No, I'm going with you!" Matt sighed as he popped the seat harness, stepping out and stretching._

 _"Fine, what ever, but we should at least leave someone who knows how to drive the damn rover." Joe and Parker both climbed out of the middle two seats, Joe already speaking._

 _"I'll stay. Rover cant be too different from a tractor." Matt shrugged, taking a deep breath before setting off into the trees, staying off the path. He didn't know why he had chosen to move away from the path, but he reasoned that if someone looking for people coming into town this way, they would be keeping an extra eye on a dirt road. It didn't take the trio long to reach the edge of the trees, Adrianna gasping as the space port came into view. There wasn't a single undamaged shuttle, some blown into dozens of small parts, only one even looking relatively intact. But even then, one of it's landing struts had been crushed, and the cockpit area was crushed in. smoke and flames could be seen rising from behind the port's retaining wall and ware house, blotting out most of the once blue sky. Matt signaled to the other two to be quiet before sprinting across the grassy field separating the tarmac from the woods, slipping behind intact crates near the remains of a shuttle he had been working on the day before. He barely kept his breath quiet as his adrenaline spiked, hearing a gruff voice on the other side of the crate speaking in a language he didn't know._

 _"No! please! Don't shoot! I'll do whatever you want!" he stiffened at the female voice, a cruel laugh following it. Without thinking, Matt stepped out from behind the crate, seeing a green skinned humanoid pointing a weapon at a woman who looked to have been hiding in a supply crate. The alien was facing away from Matt, too focused on the woman to notice her pleading glance toward the teenager. Matt sprinted forward, grabbing a long heavyweight wrench off a tool cart he passed, a scream ripping out of his throat as he came within feet of the alien. The alien fired when Matt screamed, killing the woman as he began to turn toward matt, but too late, as matt slammed the heavy piece of solid steel into the alien's forehead, caving it in. it collapsed to the ground as Matt heard Adrianna shout, not comprehending what she said as adrenaline was still overloading his body. He turned to face her, only to be shoved to the ground, hearing her gasp. She was standing about where Matt had been, a long flat and blood covered section of metal sticking out of her gut, a female green skinned alien having impaled her on the blade. Blood leaked from Adrianna's mouth, a small moan slipping out of her as the blade was yanked free, letting Adri slump to the ground. The alien woman was grinning as she spoke in her tongue, not a single word reaching Matt's ears as he back pedaled, still on his rump from being shoved over. She lunged forward, swinging the sword down in a murderous arc, Matt barely managing to put the wrench between him and the blade in time, a metallic clang ringing out as matt held both ends of the wrench, both his arms jarred from the impact. Before the alien could pull the high end blade from the rut it had cut in the steel, she was tackled from the side, pulling the wrench and the blade from Matt's hands. He scrambled for the fallen alien's pistol, grabbing it off the concrete as the twiggy form of Parker struggled with the woman, the woman managing to roll on top and pin him, yanking a knife off the small of her back. Matt panicked, pointing the weapon and firing, a green bolt ripping into her shoulder. She screamed, dropping the knife before Parker shoved her off._

 _"Shoot her again!" Matt didn't need a second invitation getting to his feet and marching over to her. by the sound of her voice, she was pleading for her life, but Matt didn't care, aiming at her head and firing._ _ **Adrianna!**_ _The thought ripped through his mind, rushing over to where she had collapsed, the weapon clattering onto the ground as he grabbed one of her hands. But he was already too late, her chest no longer rising and falling, her eye's staring off at the smoke filled sky, completely unfocused. Matt barely realized he was crying as he picked up the pistol and stood, not willing to look at her corpse._

 _"L-Let's go. They are going to pay for this…" he barely realized he had spoken before moving toward the colony, every fiber of his being now bursting with a fury he knew he couldn't contain._

* * *

Matt fired a trio of rounds into the last Borg soldier, all three slamming into it's chest and killing it, there were dozens of bodies all around the hastily set up barriers, mostly just jury rigged prefab walls set several layers deep, some being actual mobile reflective armor barriers, designed to provide quick defensive positions. There were scant few remaining defenders at the small bunker, mostly just colonists who had scooped up fallen federation officer's weapons, only one officer left.

"Kolez, how we doing?!" Matt shouted down the barricade as he continued to scan the main approach to the emergency shelter, dozens of fallen borg and humans littering the ground. A sight that brought up too many bad memories to count.

"The back entrance is clear!" the high pitched voice of the red scaled saurian carried across to me from a different set of barricades that had been breached a few minutes ago.

"Alright! Keep an eye out for more! I doubt they're done yet! Kei, how's the evac going!" I could swear something moved down the street from me, wanting to focus on that one spot, but knowing that was a bad idea. I had a clear line for almost one hundred and fifty meters, only broken by a few blown out and wrecked cars and some decorative gardens built onto the side walks. Not that there was any vegetation left in any of the waist high gardens.

"got about a hundred or so left, been beaming up fifty at a time! Two, maybe three lifts left!" I heard her shout from somewhere behind me, glancing at the two colonists beside me.

"If the Borg show up again, start shouting, got it?" the terrified colonist Matt spoke to gulped and nodded before Matt stood and trotted away from the barrier, back toward the emergency shelter. Kei was in the door way, her longer rifle slung over her shoulder. "Smalls, I need you to get up on top of the building, see if you cant see them coming. Only fire if I tell you too."

"I'm not just going to sit there and let another group swarm you guys! We've already lost enough people today!" Matt set his hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Don't worry, we don't need to hold them for much longer. Just be ready to get to the transporter area, okay?" Matt tried to give her the most comforting smile he could, barely realizing that he was shaking like crazy. she nodded before Matt turned back toward the barricade, seemingly just in time too, as one of the colonists started shouting, the other opening fire with his phaser rifle.

"Here they come again!" Matt rushed forward, stooped as low as he could get without losing speed. Green bolts of disruptor fire started whipping overhead. Matt keyed his com line as he reached the barricade, already shouting into it.

"Kei, how many!? Need your eye's!" there was a gap after he spoke, waiting for Kei to respond. Long enough for him to fire off several bursts of fire, dropping several of the cyborgs.

"Dozens at least! And they are trying to find more ways in!" Matt cursed, firing another burst off.

"Target any of them that look like they are explosive, or got something big enough to clear a barricade! Don't worry about the numbers, we got this Smalls!" he heard her angrily groan over the com line, but ignored it, too focused on engaging the oncoming borg. "Remember, aim for the legs and head. put em down for good or demobilize them, just putting rounds by them wont phase them at all!" he shouted that without thinking, having likely said that to them several times already. The colonists didn't respond, just firing off more red beams. _I wonder why they aren't adapting to the weapons fire, I thought they could do that?_ Matt quickly lost track of time and count of the number of borg they had gunned down, several of the crippled ones crawling over downed comrades to try and reach them. One of the colonist's weapon's overheated, a small blast caused by circuits frying blasting shrapnel into the man's face. "Get him out of here! I got this!" Matt shouted without thinking, continuing to fire despite the amount of heat starting to radiate from his weapon. Acidic smelling smoke was rising from the sides of the barrel, the high end cooling units and heat sinks unable to absorb the heat from the near constant weapons fire. His left hand felt like it was on fire as heat bled through the underside of the weapon. "Everyone, fall back to the entrance! Now!" he heard the other federation officer acknowledge over the com line, red bolts still ripping away from the roof top.

"Go Matt! I have you covered!" he didn't need a second invitation as he turned on the spot, sprinting as fast as he could for the main entrance to the bunker. Red bolts were ripping away from the roof faster than he could have accurately fired, but knowing Kei, she was tearing heads and limbs off with every single shot. Matt slid to a stop in the door way, aiming his weapon back the way he came and ramming the trigger in, spraying fire across the few borg he could see.

"Jenifer! MOVE!" he shouted into his com line as he kept firing, not caring how hot his weapon got, the weapon starting to glow, the underside of the weapon too hot to hold anymore. Kei came sprinting through the doorway, as sparks began to spit off the weapon, Matt, popping the buckle on his sling and tossing the blackened and fried weapon away, both of his hands feeling like they were on fire. Without hesitation, he whipped his pistol out, double checking that the lethal setting was on before he started firing, only about half his shots hitting. He took a step back as he opened fire, left hand supporting his right, and just in time as the Saurian officer slapped the door switch.

"Come on, that won't hold them long." Matt nodded to the alien, running with him and Kei down the short ramp. A blast echoed from behind him, one glance telling him the door was breached.

"Gee, you weren't kidding." Matt slid to a stop as he spoke, the trio having just reached the entrance to the bunker, where the pattern enhancers were set up. The woman who had called the distress call in the first place was the only other person in the room, already shouting.

"Come on! We're all that's left!" Matt was too focused on the several borg already on the ramp to respond, firing several phaser blasts into them.

"Come on Matt! We need to leave." He fired two more shots at Kei's shout, sprinting away from the ramp. The other three people were beginning to glow faintly blue, Kei beckoning for him to join her. her shout was lost as the light intensified, Matt just a couple of steps from the transporter area when green bolts lanced into the room, feeling one glance his thigh. He fell to the ground, rolling onto his back to return fire, hearing the transporters finish, followed by an explosion behind him. the borg who had been firing collapsed, Matt glancing back to see the one of the three pylons for the pattern enhancer in several different pieces. _Well, shit._

* * *

Spencer's gut felt like it was crawling out of his body as he watched the small romulan vessel trying to distract the twin borg spheres, it's primarily forward firepower unable to cause any damage to either sphere, it's pilot managing to keep the vessel alive by shear luck alone.

"Transporter room! Do we have everyone!" he keyed his intercom as he spoke, his voice likely carrying across the ship.

"All but on-" the male tech's voice was instantly cut off by jenifer's voice.

"Matt's still down there! I saw him get hit! We can't leave him down there!" Spencer cursed, moving to speak when a new voice joined the conversation, spitting out of the intercom.

"I think I can finangle him out of there! Gimme five to get to the transporter room!" Spencer knew the female voice was familiar, but he couldn't think of where from.

"I'm on my way too!" he shut the intercom off before standing up, instantly speaking toward Rei. "Ninja, you have the con." He didn't even wait for a response before he was through the blown out bridge door, rushing through the ship. He forgoed the any of the few turbo lifts, sliding down a set of ladders to get three decks lower before continuing his mad sprint. He sided across the smooth deck before flying through the door for one of the transporter rooms, finding dozens of civilians, as well as a couple of ragged star fleet officers, including Kei. She was beside the main control console, alongside a shockingly good looking engineer, still in her overalls, although she had zipped them halfway down to reveal her sculpted body and sweat drenched black tank top. She had several grease spots on her arms and in her hair, one smudge across her face. Her deep red hair was held back in a loose ponytail, letting her surprisingly soft features show, as well as her emerald colored eyes. "Tell me you can beam him back up here!?" the engineer glanced at him, frantically typing on the console.

"Well, this would be a hell of a lot easier to skin cat if his uppity ass would quit moving!" she seemed to half shout at Kei's communicator, earning the woman a glare from Kei.

"Well excuse me if I'm trying to keep from getting my ass pumped full of holes Jessica!" he saw the woman smirk rolling her eye's as she continued to work.

"And he yells at me for sexual innuendo…" Spencer raised an eyebrow at her, about to speak when she spoke directly at him, not taking her eyes off the console. "Give me weapons control. One of the engineering teams got the torp tube back up." He stared at her for a second, utterly bewildered. "Well come on! We don't got enough time for you to fap one off here!" he tried to shake his brain entirely free, but her vulgar speech had his male brain going wild as he keyed the intercom from his com badge.

"Uh, rei, gimme weapons control down in the transporter room, just the torpedo tube." They didn't get a response, instead, the ship shook a few seconds later, the sound of a torpedo launching echoing through the ship. "What the hell do you think you are doing!?" As Spencer shouted, a rogue strand of the woman's hair fell in front of her eyes, the woman glaring at it before blowing it out of her vision.

"Cool down just greasin the wheels a bit… now, about that lock…" she was clearly concentrating on the screen, inadvertently sticking her tongue out slightly as she furiously typed commands into the system. "Annnnnd gotcha! One soldier boy, as requested!" spencer glanced up as the familiar whine of a transporter filled the room, Matt's form appearing on his back, shielding his eyes from the wall. He instantly craned his neck to glare at the console.

"Is there a reason I nearly got vaporized by a fucking torpedo!?" Spencer was shocked at the sudden furious outburst from his friend, having never actually seen him angry before.

"Oh, you were fine, woulda taken a second or so more before the blast reached ya! And what do I keep telling you about calling me Jessica?" he just groaned and slumped to the deck, Kei launching to his side in an instant, likely checking if he was alright. He ignored them for now, keying the intercom again.

"tell the Hope to pull back! We got everyone!

* * *

Jenifer rushed to the transporter pad, instantly applying pressure to the bleeding wound on Matt's leg. He was covered in several layers of carbon, his uniform almost entirely black now, no traces of the camouflage pattern even evident anymore. She was still in full on panic mode, up until she felt him gently pat her shoulder.

"I'm fine. Just a graze. If it was something to worry about, I would've treated it by now." she looked at him for a second, realizing the wound was barely bleeding, likely having been cauterized by the same disruptor bolt that caused it. she was still jarred from adrenaline, slumping across his chest. She heard a pained groan from him when she did so. "Ow, okay, maybe fine is stretching it. too many hard knocks today, so uh, off, please!?" she laughed but remained where she was, too relieved that he was alright.

"I'm just glad you're alright! That was way to close!" she felt him jump underneath her as the female engineer spoke, Matt yelping.

"Aw, come on love birds, up! Aint no time for blow jobs, nor the place for that matter." She instantly sat bolt upright, blushing furiously. Matt on the other hand, was clutching the side of his leg, where the disruptor round hit.

"Damn it Jessica, all cause it's minor doesn't mean it doesn't fucking hurt! Vulgar little snot!" she laughed, offering him a hand up, which he brushed off, Kei noticing the split second frown that crossed her face.

"Dude, lighten up. Seriously, you'll never get a girl at this rate." He grumbled at her and rolled to his feet, faster than Kei could react, offering her a hand up. She accepted it, Spencer already beckoning them over.

"Come on, we aren't out of this yet! We got two spheres to deal with." She heard matt groan as they both trotted after him.

"Damn it spence, I left you with one probe! And now that probe is a bigger with a buddy!? You had one freaking job ya idiot!" he shrugged, smirking at Matt's shouted statement, Kei just quietly watching the exchange.

"Hey, it's not all bad, found us some romulans too!" Matt groaned, Kei unable to help but chuckle at the pair. They always managed to make her laugh, regardless of the situation. "Yo, Jessie, how's the engines? Can we make warp?" Spencer directed the question at the woman now following them, Kei having only just now noticed she had followed.

"Nope. Starboard Nacelle is still totally fucked. And our main fabricator got fucked to. Cant make the parts we need. And don't call me Jessie, you aint allowed to!" Spencer groaned opening his intercom again.

"Ninja, I need the colonists back to the transporter bays, T, get ready to open a com line to the Hope." He stopped for a second, to close the intercom before continuing. "Jessica, back to engineering, we're going to need as much power as that reactor can pump out." Matt suddenly stopped, shocking Kei and spencer.

"Kei, follow me. I can help buy us some time with one of the shuttles. You just worry about killing those sphere's spence." Spencer nodded the two locking hands before breaking off in opposite directions. Kei was used to them like this, having run several different combat sims with them. no matter what happened, they always had total faith in each others abilities. Little did she know, they had total faith in her own abilities as well.

"Hey Smalls, take care of the idiot okay!?" she glared back at spencer as she rushed to follow Matt, but nodded to him anyway.

"You got it boss, if you stop calling me smalls!"


	7. Spirit

Matt primed the shuttle's engines as soon as he dropped into the pilot's seat of the shuttle, bringing the power core fully online in likely record time, ignoring most of the preflight checks as Kei dropped into the seat beside him. both of them were silent as the hanger doors opened, Matt gently lifting his hand up to raise the craft off the floor, a single touch on the control board bringing the landing gear in. As soon as the gear had finished storing, he rammed the throttle forward, shooting out of the hanger and nearly slamming into the Gallant as they rocketed into space.

"Kei, tell me that gun is online…" he almost didn't hear her response, to focused on looping the craft around and toward the two spheres. The enemy craft swamped the Gallant as far as size, but even so, they had very low offense capability, at least, when compared to the mainstay of the Borg, the massive Borg cube. But that didn't stop them from being much more powerful than the ancient vessel slowly receding behind them. the two spheres were spaced just with in each other's weapons range, allowing the two spheres to cover each other. Currently, the romulan vessel was across the formation from the Gallant, both ships holding to the far edges of the twin spheres weapon's ranges. This meant neither side could get a clear shot on one another, but that was the only thing keeping the two smaller ships alive. Matt kept the throttle maxed out as they raced closer to the twin spheres, both ignoring them for the moment.

"Alright, both turrets ready to fire, shields fully charged, what's the plan Matt?" he took a deep breath as they continued to close the distance.

"I want to see if they will risk shooting each other. We get between them and fire on one. If I'm right, they wont fire directly on us with a risk of hitting their allied ship. _if_ they are willing to fire still, we make them shoot each other." Kei nodded and bit her lip, doing everything but locking the weapons on, waiting for his signal to fire. "Alright, light em up!" She didn't respond, just locking and firing the topside phaser on one sphere, the bottom on the other. Almost instantly, both spheres returned in kind, but their shots went wide, neither sphere wanting to hit the other.

"Well, they won't shoot each other!" she was already firing the weapons again as she spoke, Matt artfully rolling and pitching the shuttle to stay between the two ships.

"Yeah, now we just need to stay between them. this'll be fun!"

* * *

Spencer watched as the shuttle danced between the two spheres, narrowly escaping death several times over as green beams lanced by the shuttle. Meanwhile, he had pulled the Gallant back, ceasing all fire and retreating just out side of weapons range, which seemed to be enough to keep their attention on the shuttle and the Romulan ship. Despite what he wanted to do, the Romulan ship didn't have any room to carry the colonists, being barely large enough to hold its seventy man crew. _Think Spencer, there has got to be a way to beat these things!_

"Rei, how's the weapons?" the man didn't even look up from his station, shouting back toward him.

"Twelve photon torpedoes, standard, one armor piercing, low yield. Tube is at half functionality auto loader is damaged. Port phaser is still down, as well as the topside pulse turret. Rear and underside turrets running hot, but cooling, as well as starboard Phasers. Due to damage to the shield emitters, our shields aren't going to break even twenty percent." Spencer sighed his mind still racing for an idea when suddenly hit him.

"Those AP torpedoes, aren't they remote guidable?"

The pilot was oddly enough the one to respond to spencers sudden question. "yeah, most torpedoes are. What the bloody hell are you getting' at yank?" Spencer was already ignoring him, his mind racing through the idea he had thought of. One tap on his command chair brought up the intercom for engineering.

"Jessica, are you near the warp core right now?" he waited for a positive response before continuing.

"Uh, yeah, why?" he could hear the confusion in the woman's voice, Spencer already starting to think of how best to explain his plan.

"We are running a tri-cell warp core, right?"

"Yeeees? It's standard to run a multi cell core, at least one back up cell if the main core goes down, why?" Spencer grinned knowing he was about to be called totally insane.

"Could you be a dear and yank one of the cells and retrofit it into the AP torp we got? Preferably in a way you can detonate the cell remotely. I'll see you down in the torpedo room shortly, thanks." He clicked the intercom off with out waiting for a response, already focusing on Morikawa's utterly bewildered expression. "No, I'm not crazy. One of the deadliest occurrences in a large scale space battle is a Warp core breach, right? So if we cause a core to detonate near one of those sphere's…." he made a rolling hand motion at Rei, trying to get him to finish his thought.

"We could take down one of the sphere's shields, maybe even damage the sphere." Wash was the one to speak again, Spencer smirking as realization dawned on every bridge member's face.

"That is against regulations Captain! Ejecting a warp cell is reserved for uncontainable breeches only! We can not just use the cell as an explosive device!" Spencer sighed and rolled his eyes as he stood.

"And that is why you always lose in battles T. cant think out side the box, and I think this counts as an 'emergency situation'. If we can down one of the sphere's, we may be able to down the other. Rei, you have the con, be ready to move the ship and engage, tell the romulans to back off and be ready to re-engage." As soon as he finished speaking, he raced back out of the door, headed down to the torpedo room. He was shocked when he arrived in the cramped chamber, Jessica already being chest deep in their one black armor piercing torpedo. He couldn't help but feel more than a little uneasy, seeing explosive components intermixed with one very volatile warp coil. She had already managed to stuff the coil into the torpedo, and she seemed to be now working on rigging the coil to explode. "Wow, you work fast." She didn't make any move or sound to respond, still half buried inside the massive torpedo.

"Alright, I think I got this. it's real janky, but should pop when we want it too." he smirked as the woman slipped from the torpedo, lightly landing on the deck plating before grabbing the outer hull of the torpedo. Without a word, he helped her roll the cart over to a rack that fed into the main torpedo tube, the feed from the magazine leading up into the ship, that feed being bent, one of the highly volatile torpedoes stuck in it.

"That's…. unsettling." The engineer glanced at him, her eyes quickly flicking up to the torpedo as well.

"Could be worse. I already removed the primer from that torpedo. Now , you gonna help me or not?" he groaned before getting on the back end of the torpedo, the two of them barely able to move it off the cart it was on and onto the loading rail. "There, system can handle the rest." He nodded, following her to a console near the room's entrance, where she proceeded to give commands at blinding speeds. Behind them, a mechanical rammer shoved the torpedo into the tube, quickly being depressurized before she brought up a camera feed from the weapon. "Where do you want this bad boy?"

"I want you to nail that mother fucker. Can you do that from here?" She rolled her eye's at him, bringing up the launch controls and guidance program.

"Duh. We might be out of guidance range, but this is space, there aint a maximum effective range to an object. Sir Issac Newton will _always_ be the deadliest son of a bitch in the universe." He smirked at her, about to respond when an incredible amount of noise filled his ears, not realizing just how loud a torpedo firing really was. He watched in anticipation as the grainy image drew closer and closer to the borg ship. the screen was nearly blurred out by a green beam of light, Jessica starting to juke and weave the weapon.

"Gonna lose connection in about ten seconds!" he cursed, knowing there was still at least a click between the weapon and the sphere. He watched as the camera switched to a view from the ship, seeing the blue ball that was the torpedo. For a second, he thought the sphere had shot it down as a beam of green light flashed toward it, only to stop on something, just before the torpedo impacted, a massive blue blast enveloping the sphere.

"Spencer to bridge! What just happened?! Did we get good effect on target?!" there was a couple seconds of silence, spencer watching as the screen slowly began clearing, the shape of the sphere looking deformed.

"Good effect Spencer, but we lost contact with the shuttle." He cursed at Rei's words, rushing from the room to head back to the bridge.

"Reengage and destroy that sphere!" his mind was racing as he spoke, just hoping Matt and Kei were alright.

* * *

Kerina shielded her eyes as a brilliant flash filled her viewscreen, utterly confused at what she had just seen. As far as she could tell, the federation ship had fired a plain old torpedo, but the blast from it looked more like a warp core detonating, simply on a smaller scale. A third of the sphere was blown away by the blast.

"What was that!" her long time friend and now pilot of the Hope, Toven Khev, sounded as shocked as she was.

"No clue, just bring us about, lets hit that other sphere!" he didn't acknowledge as he turned the ship, Kerina already locking the guidance for the plasma torpedoes. Toven had control over the primary twin disruptors, she had torpedo control at the main command station, and the electronic warfare station had control over the two beam turrets, meant for defensive purposes, not offensive.

"R.R.W. Hope, we do not have torpedo capability anymore, we're going to try and disable that sphere's shields, you nail it!" the transmission she was receiving was audio only, but she easily recognized the voice of the Gallant's commander. The ship shook as Tovan began firing the main cannons, the green balls of destructive energy washing across the sphere's shielding. Meanwhile, similar orange bolts were slamming into the sphere from the other side, as well as orange beams. Tovan didn't even need a chance to dodge as it's shields dropped, Kerina instantly firing a torpedo. The bright green orb ripped across the screen, impacting on the sphere. After a second or so, a bright green blast blew out a large chunk from the sphere, the sphere detonating a few seconds later. She couldn't help but cheer at that, her fellow Romulans around her joining in. the ragged image of the Federation ship's bridge suddenly appeared, a sweaty and tired looking commander now plopped in the command chair. She couldn't help but notice yet again just how well built he was. Not big by any means, but there was no doubt in her mind that he was incredible shape. And despite him being human, she had trouble looking away from him. "You guys okay over there?" he was clearly still trying to catch his breath as he spoke.

"Yes, we didn't take any direct hits. What about you ship?" he groaned at her question, one look at his ragged ship being all the answer she really needed.

"Ninja, do we have sensors?" she raised an eyebrow at the strange name he had just spoken, someone off screen speaking.

"No. that last hit knocked the LADAR offline too. We're running deaf right now." he cursed under his breath, his attention returning to her.

"Hope, we need your help. We have a shuttle out here that we lost contact with, can you run a scan for it?" he sounded beyond desperate, making her want to instantly respond.

"I'm on it." she muted the com line before she continued. "Satra, start looking, let me know as soon as you find anything." The woman only nodded, speaking only seconds later.

"I got them! shuttle is severely damaged but I'm reading two life signs on board."

"Alright, beam them aboard, then straight into their transporter room." The woman nodded yet again, Kerina unmuting the line. "Gallant, we found them, and we are beaming the pilots too you as we speak." He breathed a sigh of relief, Kerina feeling like he was about to speak when warning alarms blared to life on her ship, a massive cube shaped ship appearing with in a few clicks of their two ships. "Borg cube!" she was already in full on panic mode.

"Damn it, Wash, best speed full retreat, all shields rear!" the federation ship almost immediately began to turn and run, but it was already too late, a green beam of destruction ripping into one of it's nacelles, blowing it clean off. Although, it seemed she didn't know much about Federation ships, given it was already beginning evasive maneuvers, the loss of the nacelle didn't effect its maneuvering.

"Tovan, put us between the Gallant and that cube, now!" her friend went wide eyed, totally shocked at that order.

"Bu-ut there's no way we can stop that thing!"

"I know, Satra, start evacing our people to the Gallant, we don't have the space to get their people out, so we'll use this ship to buy them time. Got it?" he nodded, the ship beginning to move.

"Kerina, multiple warp out signals, federation ships, at least three dozen!" she saw several of the ships, their orange beam and pulse weapons opening fire almost immediately. Within seconds, the combined fire of the federation ships had blasted the cube's shielding away, the cube trying to pull away from the onslaught to no avail, even it's heavy armor and mass succumbing to the amount of fire it was under, eventually exploding.

"U.S.S. Gallant, this is Captain Harris of the U.S.S. Kirk, respond!" they were receiving a video feed from the pristine bridge of the Odyssey class star cruiser evidently leading the large sized fleet. The middle aged man in the center of the frame looked surprisingly panicked.

"This is Acting Captain Armstrong of the U.S.S. Gallant, we have sustained catastrophic damage and heavy casualties. We have the surviving colonists onboard as well!" that seemed to panic the captain even more.

"Gallant, I want a casualty report A-SAP! We'll begin taking the colonists aboard the Kirk as well as survivors. All ships, fan out and set a perimeter around the planet, scan for any more survivors. Harris out." The comm line cut, leaving herself and the Gallant on the channel.

"Hope, Thanks a million. We wouldn't have made it through that without you." the entire Gallant crew looked beyond relieved.

"Your welcome Armstrong. Just glad we could help." She smiled, about to close the comm line when Armstrong stood from his chair.

"Don't call me 'Armstrong', sounds weird. It's Spence. If you ever need help, and I'm in the neighborhood, gimme a ring, I'll help you." he closed the comm line after that, Kerina fell back into her chair, breathing a deep sigh of relief. She barely even realized she was shaking like crazy.

"Let's get back to the flotilla. I'm sure they have a new mission waiting for us." she didn't pay attention as her friends responded, the ship turning away from the planet as Toven brought the warp drive online, quickly pushing them up to Warp speed.

* * *

Matt groaned as he instinctively sat up, not even opening his eyes yet, his hand sliding down his hip to find his sidearm missing. His eyes snapped open in an instant at that, already panicking. He barely took in his surroundings as he searched his immediate vicinity for it. he was in a medical bay, but not the Gallant's, his panic dropping off as his holster was dropped into his lap, instantly relieved to have the weapon back. He glanced up after grabbing it, seeing Jenifer standing beside him.

"Are you okay?" he could easily see the concern in her eyes, seeing a bandage around her head. there were wounded all around them, more than the medical personnel could handle. Kei was the only one of his friends that he could see right now, but last he knew, they were alright, so he wasn't concerned.

"Yeah, I think so. Where are we, what's going on?" he tried to sound calm, but no matter what, part of him was panicking at the moment.

"We're on the U.S.S. Kirk. The Gallant's warp core is unstable right now, so they evacuated it and the Kirk is towing it back to earth. We made it Matt!" he could see tears forming in her eyes, the girl suddenly hugging him, Matt instantly tensing up again, almost shoving her off in fact.

"Yeah…. so could you let go of me, please?" if anything that seemed to make her cry even more. He gritted his teeth and pushed her off himself as gently as he could. She didn't fight him, merely tried to wipe her tears away.

"I'm sorry… i… this… i…. im just glad we made it. when you put us between that shot and the torpedo…. I thought we we're goners." As much as she was crying, he could easily tell just how relieved she really was.

"Are Spence and T alright?"

"Why don't you ask us yourself, dufas." He glanced over at the sound of spencer's voice, instantly smiling as he and T'Vrel approached from the medical bay's entrance.

"Great, I was hoping someone had finally shut your trap for good." Spencer smirked at the jibe, the two bumping fists as soon as they were close enough.

"Nah, nothing is pulling that off. You good?" Matt nodded, returning the smirk.

"How bad was it?" all pretense of fun disappeared from their faces, Spencer instantly grimacing.

"Bad. Thirty-nine dead. Most everyone else is injured in some way or another. Ship is more than likely totaled. None of the instructors survived. But we made it, and we saved at least five hundred some odd civilians. So I guess there's that…." He gulped and looked away, clearly thinking he was guilty in some way.

"Yeah, we did make it. and we did incredible. We took down a modern warship after being ambushed and damn near disabled by it, and managed to save several hundred colonists with a damaged ship, while holding off not one, but three borg ships with nothing but a single, also damaged, Romulan light warbird for support. What we did, is incredible." Spencer and Kei both still looked down, T with her usually almost blank expression, although Matt could still see the faint traces of a smile on her lips.

"He's right. Every fight we were in, the odds were entirely against us. but despite that, we won. That is something we should all be proud of." Matt was almost shocked that she had said that, but then again, one of T'Vrell's best classes had been psychology. Spencer managed a weak smile, glancing between all three of his friends.

"Well, lets not let it happen like this again. I don't want to lose anyone ever again." His smile faded as he spoke, his quiet voice being very clear that he was dead serious. Something Matt couldn't help but smile at.

"And we wont. I know I'm probably not the best to say this, all things considered, but no matter what happens, never stop trying to do better." Matt wanted to kick himself for saying that, but deep down, he really agreed with himself on that. It was something he had silently decided for himself years before, not long after joining Starfleet actually.

"Well, we all have sometime before we make it back to earth. So lets all get some rest. Who knows whats gonna happen next to us." they all nodded in agreement to Spencer's words, Matt slipping off the bed and gesturing for them to lead the way, still firmly clutching his weapon.

* * *

"Have you read the reports yet sir?" Admiral Quinn glanced at the holographic screen of Admiral Bates, the commander in charge of the officer training academy as the man spoke. the two had been tight friends over their several decade career in Starfleet, having both trained and served together, alongside Captain Mitchell as well. Oddly enough, Mitchell had been their captain during their early careers, but had refused promotion after promotion, managing to stay a captain the whole time. The thought of their now deceased friend prompted Admiral Quinn to look out his window to the shipyards just off the main earth space dock. Although it was hard to see at this distance, he could still pick out the mangled hull of the Gallant, the first ship he had served on. He had been one of the first training crews the ship had taken up on it, as a matter of fact. It saddened him to see the ship as badly damaged as it was now, having always held the old ship in a special part of his heart.

"Yes, I have." Silence stretched between the pair for a few seconds as Quinn's eyes slid across the different ships moored in the shipyard, one of the closest docks catching his attention.

The ship was as of yet, unnamed, although it had maybe a month or two left on it's main construction, and would likely be fully in service just weeks after that. The ship was almost a smaller version of the sovereign class, with minor differences to it's hull, the most obvious being the fact that the ship was almost a hundred meters shorter. It also had far fewer windows, and the hull, although retaining the same general shape as a sovereign, had an almost entirely angular hull, almost no rounded edges to be found on it.

What was not noticeable from the outside, was how heavily reinforced the hull structure was. It had been designed to withstand large volumes of enemy fire. As for armament, it was equipped with twelve high velocity quantum torpedo launchers, four rear, eight forward, three times as many as ships it's size, rivaling the number larger ships had, as well nine main phaser banks, six on the disk, three on the lower hull. But surprisingly, these were not it's main firepower. It's main combat power came from a new type of ship based pulse phasers, similar to a compression phaser, compressing the energy into a tight, high velocity bolt, designed to disperse the energy on impact for maximum effect on the target. It had twenty of these new phasers spread around the ship, twelve on the disk, eight on the lower hull, leaving no gaps in fire coverage. But even these were not it's strongest source of firepower.

The primary weapons on the ship were two much larger versions of the compression phasers, similar to the phaser cannons on a Defiant class in the sense that they were forward fire only, with a rough twenty degree firing arc in front of the ship. But these two compression cannons had already been tested, and could cripple most ships in a single shot, if not outright destroying them, earning the ship class it's name of destroyer class.

To compensate for these main weapons inability to fire anywhere but forward, the ship was equipped with quantum phased hyper-cooled combat impulse engines, making it one of the fastest and most maneuverable ships the federation had ever fielded. The power requirements alone on the ship had been astronomical, needing three reactor systems to even run, two primary reactors powering the engines and weapons, and a secondary handling most of the other systems. It's shielding was also top of the line, making it not only powerful, but tough as well. On the downside, the ship didn't have the space for a large crew, only able to hold three to four hundred crew at most, and that was under tight conditions. As it was, it was designed around having a two hundred and fifty man crew.

Admiral Quinn had so far had trouble finding a captain and crew for the vessel, despite the fact that it had been in development for nearly a decade now to combat the rising threat of the borg. Although, it was more likely to be fielded against the Klingons now. Most captains these days had joined Star Fleet to be explorers, and of those qualified to command the ship, none had wanted to.

"Actually, I was thinking on making cadet Armstrong a captain, and assigning him to the new destroyer."

"Are you sure about that? Shouldn't you assign a more experienced commander to it? it is a true warship after all."

Admiral Quinn smirked, finally looking back at the hologram. "I've been looking into that for three years now. none of the captains I've interviewed have any desire to captain a pureblood warship. It just isn't what we are trained for as Starfleet officers. Besides, he shows incredible promise as a leader, not only thinking on his feet, but he listens to his crew, and trusts them. I haven't met many captains capable of that." Bates rested his chin on his hands after Quinn said that, clearly lost in thought.

"I see your point, and I do agree, he shows promise as a leader, but are you sure he's ready to be one?" Admiral Quinn instantly nodded, his eyes flicking to the time beside the video call.

"Actually, he should be arriving in my office shortly. I'll have to call you back later. Take care, old friend." Bates nodded to Quinn before Quinn closed the line, almost on que with the secretary's voice ringing out on his intercom.

"Cadet Armstrong is here sir." He smirked, straightening his uniform, more out of habit than anything else.

"Send him in please, Burns." A second or so after he said that into the intercom, the main door to his office opened, a slim young man stepping in that he instantly recognized from his file.

"Cadet Spencer Armstrong, reporting as ordered sir!" the Cadet was saluting as he spoke, the Admiral returning his salute before beckoning him over to the window.

"relax Cadet, I have an offer for you, one I want you to think long and hard on." He nodded as he stepped to the window, remaining at the position of at ease, not fully relaxed as he had been commanded. The Admiral rolled his eyes before continuing, gesturing out at the ship he had just been inspecting. "do you see that ship in the shipyard, the one closest to the station?"

"Yes sir, I do. What about it sir?"

"I want you to command it. she doesn't have a name as of yet, that's an honor for her first commander. But only if you think you're ready for it." he glanced between the ship and the Admiral, clearly shocked, but his response was far from what the Admiral expected.

"Sir, with all do respect, I don't have the experience to command a ship. much less one of the newest ships in the fleet. Aside from that, I don't even know what class of ship that is, sir." The Admiral smiled, gesturing to the desk and its chairs as he sunk himself into one of them.

"I disagree. You have already commanded a ship under very rigorous circumstances, and brought it back intact, despite the odds. At least for your space trails, I'll leave an experienced commander aboard, should you so ask, but I believe you are more than ready for a command. We need fast acting and out of the box thinking commanders, especially if this war with the Klingon's persists. And that ship is the first of it's class, a Destroyer class vessel, to be precise. She is the first true warship the federation has ever built." He watched the young cadet as he fell silent, looking at the floor for a while before staring out at the ship, clearly lost in thought.

"On one condition sir. The Cadets from the Gallant. I want all of them. and I want Cadet Kei to be my first officer, Cadet Hawkins as my head of security, and cadet T'vrell as my communication specialist. Otherwise, I will not accept that offer." He saw the almost defiant fire that seemed to burn in his eyes, a determination only found in the youthful members of Starfleet. Something he believed they needed more of.

"I believe that is four conditions, Cadet. But I accept those terms. I was actually going to suggest Cadet Hawkins and Cadet Kei for your crew. I don't expect you to have a name for the ship yet, but you have only a few weeks to come up with one. Let me be the first to call you this, but dismissed Captain." He nodded, standing and saluting the Admiral, the Admiral promptly returning it, watching as he left. _Good luck to you captain. That ship will be needed in the days to come._

* * *

Kei smirked as she glanced out at the dance floor, seeing the volume of people in the club just having fun. Very few were faces she recognized, and unlike clubs on earth, there were people of many different races all dancing and partying here. Despite the events of the previous week still being fresh in her mind, this place was getting her to smile still. Matt on the other hand, seemed almost no different than he had been, as silent and unaffected by life as he usually was, but she noticed just how much more distant he was being than his usual, but she still found herself too afraid to ask him. then again, she had her own problems to deal with. She had been having nightmares since they got back about the battle they had been in, unable to get any of the images out of her head. as such, she was utterly exhausted. Hence why when Spence decided to meet them at the club after his meeting with the Fleet Admiral, herself and Matt had decided to pick a booth to sit in, rather than meeting at the bar like they would've on earth. T was with them, but, much like Matt and Jenifer, hadn't said a word, leaving Jenifer to just watch the people in the club. They were all wearing their off duty clothes, not that matts was much different from his norm, just drop the top and vest, leaving him in a T-shirt and cargo pants, untucked unlike his norm. Jenifer had chosen simple leggings and a loose sleeveless green blouse, just to be comfortable, while T was actually still in her regular uniform.

"Hey guys, you all look bored out of your minds. Is this really what you're like when I'm not around? God, I feel sorry for you Kei." Kei startled at the sound of spencer's voice, her head whipping about to see Spencer almost flopped over the back of the booth, his unbuttoned shortsleeve shirt showing a designer T-shirt he loved beneath.

"Not always. Besides, the quiet can be nice from time to time, dick." He chuckled before slinging himself over the back of the booth, dropping into a seat between Matt and Kei.

"So what was the meeting with the Admiral about Spence?" he barely glanced at Matt as Matt spoke, shrugging.

"Oh, no big deal, just told me about my new ship. need a name for her though…." Kei stared at him, utterly confused, and partially feeling like he was pulling their legs, again.

"Did the Admiral give you a command?!" If Jenifer didn't know better, T'vrell sounded shocked, the thought of Spencer being given a command kinda scaring Kei.

"That he did my lovely Vulcan friend. And best part is, I finagled you all aboard. Say hello to the first officer," he pointed at Kei as he spoke, "Head of security," then Hawkins, "Communications specialist," he pointed at T next, "And captain of the newest, and only, Destroyer class ship in the Federation fleet." He pointed at himself as he finished, a massive grin on his face.

"You're kidding!?" he merely smiled at Kei's shouted statement. "Yo-you're not! Holy shit!" he nodded, his voice softening.

"Yeah. I really don't know what to name her though. I'd like you guys opinion on it….." the group fell silent, Kei letting herself think for a minute, running through several names in her head.

"How about ' _Spirit_ '? sounds nice, doesn't it?" he rolled his eyes at Kei, clearly about to dismiss her idea.

"I actually like the sound of that. It's unique. I've never seen a ship with that name at least." Spencer rolled his eyes at Matt's words, earning a light smack on his arm from Kei too.

"I like it. it's kinda mysterious." The group all jumped again at the female voice, Kei recognizing the engineer from the Gallant.

"Thank you Cadet Harris, we really needed that insight." Kei gave Matt a shocked look as he spoke to the gal in a sarcastic, almost downright hostile manner.

"Look, I'm sorry about what I said while we were doing that EV work on the Gallant today. It was out of line. But there's no need to be an ass about it, jeez." The very hurt look on Jessica's face made Kei even more curious about what had happened between them, and almost jealous in a way. _Wait, why am I jealous of her at all? I wouldn't want Matt angry at me too!_ she sighed, hoping no one noticed that.

"It's a very respectable name Cadet Armstrong. I see no reason to not pick it." he smirked, bumping his elbow into Kei.

"Nah, I'm only against it because smalls here suggested it." he winked at her, earning a light but playful smack to the back of his head. something beyond them seemed to catch his attention, instantly straightening up, almost like a dog perking up to the sound of it's name being called. "Ohhhh, look what we have here….." his almost whispered statement made Kei groan, knowing exactly what he had likely spotted. "Hey, uh Matt, gonna need ya on this one!" now it was Matt's turn to groan as Spencer launched himself from the bench, making a beeline for the dance for.

"Have an icepack ready. He's gonna need it soon." Kei just smiled and rolled her eyes, Spencer shouting back to them gaining her attention.

"By the way, I like Spirit too! so I guess that's her name now!" with that, he disappeared onto the dance floor, Kei rolling her eyes at him yet again.

"I can't believe we put up with him…." Kei couldn't help but mumble that to herself, but even so, the whole encounter had her smiling, Jessica still awkwardly standing by the booth.

"So…. This is what soldier boy's friends are usually like? Kinda figured you guys would be…. Well…. More like him." she chuckled, having thought the same thing when Matt first mentioned Spencer.

"Yeah, I thought that too. care to sit?" she smiled and nodded, sitting down beside Kei. "It's Jessica right?" she nodded and Kei instantly continued. "So what did you say to Matt to piss him off?" she instantly blushed, clearly finding the dance floor much more entertaining at the moment.

"Oh…. Uh nothing! Just a stupid joke I took a little too far!" by the change in her voice, it was clearly a lot more complicated than that, but Jenifer was willing to accept that answer. For now at least.

"Well, T, let's get some food. I don't know about you, but I'm starving." She quickly stood and headed for the exit, not caring that she left Jessica just sitting there, almost shocked.


	8. Nebula Blaze

**I know it's been awhile since i posted anything, i promise, it aint that i stopped. it's just a shifted focus. i intend to finish all of my stories at some point or another.**

* * *

Matt startled awake, a light banging on his cabin door waking him. he couldn't shake the memories that had been plaguing him over the past two months, dreaming about the attack on his old home, the images of it intertwining with those of the colony on Vega three. No matter how badly he didn't want to remember them, he couldn't stop himself

A sigh slipped out of him as he pulled himself from his bed, glancing around the room he was in. It was still strange to him that he was a lieutenant now, having his own cabin, unlike the ensigns and enlisted below him. It wasn't a large room, but it had it's own replicator and it's own full bathroom. It even had a small dining table complete with four chairs and it's own arms locker, which he stored his personal gear in. he quickly strapped his holster back on before moving to the door, bare foot but still fully dressed from the day before. He wasn't surprised at all to find Kei at his door, having been woken up by her almost every day since they started living on the U.S.S. Spirit a month prior.

"good morning! Sleep well?" he just shrugged at her cheery question, which had been his response to her every morning.

"Well enough. Sleep any better?" she shook her head in response, Matt stepping out of the way to let her inside. She had let him know just the day before that she hadn't been sleeping well since the attack on the Vega colony.

"No… not really. You know we gotta be up on the bridge soon, right? We're finally casting off for a real mission." He grunted at her as he moved over to his small closet, pulling out a fresh uniform top and slipping it on, before sliding back into his boots. Neither said a word as they left the room, passing a pair of security members in the hall. Spencer had given Matt permission to modify the uniform and training standards for security personnel, all of the security on the ship wearing camouflage and carrying new model compression pistols. Although the weapons were different then the blocky old school style weapon Matt carried, with most of the firing assembly sitting over the users hand, this actually gave it a small stability and ease of use advantage over conventional weapons, the weight being perfectly balanced in the users hand, the shorter length past the users hand also helping in close quarters too. these phasers were actually a federation design, used as a heavier option for security teams. Between it's high powered stun blast setting and the lethal blasts, it made for a great basic sidearm. Each member was also issued reflective armor and a personal shield, as well as being assigned a compression rifle, almost identical to what matt used to carry in fact, given it as well had been a heavy weight alternative weapon available for Starfleet personnel, but most ships didn't carry them in their armory. Before matt could think more on the subject, they were already stepping into one of the turbolifts, likely going to be on the bridge in just a few minutes.

"Know anything about this mission?" she nodded, Matt knowing she was going to. As the First Officer, she had likely accompanied Spencer to the briefing on the mission.

"Yeah. they think the Klingons have a listening post out in a nebula. We're being sent to destroy it and recover any data they may have picked up. After that, there have been rumors of someone selling thalorin weapons out of the nimbus system. We've been tasked to investigate after we deal with the listening post." He nodded to her, unable to help but feel a little apprehension at that.

"Any idea on ship numbers?" she nodded, the door opening as she did so.

"Three birds of prey. Brass thinks it will make for a good test run of the ship." as much as he didn't want to admit it, he agreed about it being a good test run. In sims, they had already taken on a dreadnaught class warship and won, but then again, that had only been a simulation, not a real fight. And it had been costly.

"And Nimbus?" she shrugged, leaving that as her only response.

"Matt, are security teams ready?" Spencer's voice caused matt's attention to near instantly focus on him, nodding.

"We're good to go spence." Spence nodded at matt's response, his attention returning to the other bridge members. None of them were unfamiliar faces, almost all of them having served on the Gallant with them. only three of the survivors hadn't joined them on the new vessel. Two had requested to serve elsewhere, one had left federation service due to the physical and psychological trauma they had endured.

"Jessica, bring us up to full power." Spencer was now speaking into the intercom as myself and Jennifer took our seats on either side of Spencer's command chair. "Wash, get us moving out of the space dock, T, give me an all ship broadcast." He got several affirmatives from those he spoke to, T being the last of them. he took a moment to take a deep breath as the view screen showed the ship backing away from it's exterior dock. "All hands, this is Captain Spencer Armstrong. Technically, what I am about to tell you is supposed to be top secret information, our official task being a training cruise, but that is not the case. Today, we cast off on our first mission. The Klingons have been using a listening post in the Paulson nebula for the past eight months to tap into our communications, making multiple precision strikes on federation targets. It's our job to attack the post and figure out what data they may have taken. In the next twelve hours, we will be engaging the enemy in combat. All hands, prepare battle stations! That is all!" as soon as he finished speaking, his attention shifted to Matt. "I need an away team prepped and ready to assault the post, something small and fast."

"Quinton, Catina, and smalls. Should do fine with them." Jenifer groaned beside Matt, likely at his use of her nickname as matt responded, Quinton and Catina were some of the only surviving security team members from the Gallant, and had proven to be very capable fighters.

"Add me to that list and get whatever gear you think we could need ready."

"Got it. come on smalls." Matt gestured for her to follow him as he stepped back toward the elevator, Jenifer glaring at him, but following.

* * *

"Dropping from warp in thirty seconds!"

Spencer glanced up at the sound of Wash's voice, taking a deep breath before he spoke. "All hands, red alert! Shields up, and ready weapons!" there were several Aye-Ayes from around the bridge as tactical read outs started appearing on his personal holo display, the forward viewscreen still set to the forward ship view. But the hologram floating before him showed his ship in the center of a forty kilometer scale bubble, and as sensor data was received, it would place enemy ships, weapons fire, all of it into his interactive hologram, letting him easily track exactly where his ship was, as well as where the enemy ships were. He could even change the scale of it so he could see a wider or narrower picture of the battlefield. It was a new tactical system designed for this ship, one that even Spencer thought would revolutionize how commanders controlled the battle space.

"Five-" Spencer couldn't help but gulp as Wash began his count down. "Four-" the stars on the viewscreen began to slow and stretch into long lines as the ship began to drop out of Warp speeds. "Three-two-one!" Most ships, there was a slight jolt as the ship entered or left Warp travel, but the Spirit didn't even quiver as the stars ceased to move, disappearing altogether as the orange and brown dust cloud of the Paulson nebula enveloped them. nothing appeared on his tactical feed, Spencer quickly expanding it out to hundreds of kilometers. Several small rocks appeared on the system, ranging from a meager two kilometers in diameter up to nearly fifty.

"Alright Ensign Howell, keep active scans going for their listening post. Intelligence says it should be in this region." Before he could finish speaking, a Klingon Bird of Prey, a sort of light attack frigate appeared, a warning alarm ringing across the ship. based on the settings he had already placed in the tactical viewer, it automatically snapped to a smaller range, keeping the enemy ship and the Spirit in the sphere shaped viewer.

"Sir, enemy vessel, five o'clock high, it's firing disruptors!" the female sensor officer shouted that out, but Spencer made absolutely no move to respond, simply letting Rei do his job. Red dots shot away from both vessels on the read out as thundering shudders were sent through the ship. the main view screen changed so that it was aimed at the enemy ship, the ninety meter long vessel highlighted in a red outline, not that it's dark brown hull wasn't already clear enough against the backdrop. Green bolts could easily be seen in the image, about to strike the Spirit, with bright red bolts about to slam into enemy ship. the disruptor rounds hit the shields and barely even made the Spirit twitch. The first couple of scarlet bolts slammed into the enemy ship, detonating like they were explosive rounds. The first bolt blasted away the ships energy shielding, the second tearing one of it's bird like wings clean from the hull. The successive shots following obliterated the vessel like it was no more than a wet tissue paper.

"Damn, that was only one battery, wasn't even all of our fire power. I kinda have to feel sorry for them….." Spencer glanced at Rei, just as two more blips appeared on the read out. "Two more dropping cloak, returning fire. Those two ships were cut down equally fast, the ship not even flinching at the shots hitting the shielding.

"Alright, keep searching for the listening post, I'm going to go link up with the away team. Ping me when you have the post's position." With that Spencer left the bridge, headed for the main transporter room.

* * *

Jenifer adjusted her grip on the fully automatic compression phaser she was holding. She didn't much like using the smaller weapon compared to the sniper rifle she normally carried, but a sniper rifle wasn't exactly feasible in the cramped spaces of a space station. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't quell her trembling muscles, shuddering out a small sigh. She nearly jumped out of her skin as a hand gently set down on her shoulder, her head snapping around to see Matt giving her a worried expression.

"You okay Jen?" she felt like his eyes were boring through her skull with how deadly serious his voice and expression were, Jenifer letting out yet another small sigh.

"Ju… I'm….. I'm just scared." She closed her eyes at that, barely able to even admit that. If she was totally honest with herself, she was absolutely terrified. It had barely been two months since the last fight they had been in, and despite all of the training runs she had done alongside the security teams, it still shook her to the core to even think about being under fire again.

"Me too Smalls. But we can do this. okay? I've got your back." He gently squeezed her shoulder as he spoke, causing her to look at him, shocked as she realized how pale he was. She did her best to nod at him, her eyes doing one more visual sweep of her equipment. She was wearing a plain reflective armor plate, no cloth cover on it like Matt's, just a dull metallic plate, with plain black fatigues on under it. Matt was wearing his usual grey patterned fatigues and covered vest, the other two with them were in the same camouflaged uniform, but with the uncovered plate that she was wearing. all of them had the same rifle and pistol, with Matt's clunkier side arm being the only exception.

Crewman Alicia Catina was one of the pair with them, a low ranking non-officer member of the security force. She had long blonde hair, sharp features and green eyes, and was much older than Jenifer herself. She had been a police officer on earth before joining Starfleet, and her years of experience had made her a natural choice for their primary away team. Quinton Garretson was actually one of their direct classmates, and had been one of the away team leaders on the Gallant, leading the away team Catina had been assigned too. the bulky and built Irishmen had curly fiery orange hair, matching his light green eyes. His incredibly thick accent had always been entertaining to listen too, the man being surprisingly chill about anything and everything.

Jenifer's attention was grabbed by the door to the transporter room flashing open, allowing Spencer to walk in. he was wearing a set of black cargo pants, his black skin tight t-shirt from under his uniform, and his own reflective armor plate. Matt passed Spencer his rifle, the young captain accepting the weapon immediately, a sidearm already on his hip.

"Got everything we might need Hawk?"

"Yeah. det cord, breaching charges, small amount of demo charges for anything the detcord and breachers can't handle. Weapons and armor only beyond that."

Spencer nodded to Matt as he dropped the tactical sling on his rifle over his chest, much like everyone else already had, before he began pacing back and forth, simply waiting like the rest of them.

"Sir, we have the listening post in sight, they sent out a distress call. I doubt we have much time before enemy reinforcements arrive. Ready to beam the away team aboard now!" Jenifer watched Spencer take a deep breath after Rei's voice echoed out of the intercom, Spencer's eye's closing for several seconds before he stepped toward the transporter.

"Alright, so long as we are down there, Hawk is in charge. Clear?" all of them nodded as each member took a position on the transporter pad.

"Charge weapons, barrels up, safeties off, just like we drilled people." Kei gulped at Matt's words, raising her weapon as all of the phasers whined to life. Doing this meant the group would be ready to go should they be transported into a group of enemy forces, and was the whole reason Matt had taught them this tactic. She gave him one last glance as the transporter whined to life, unable to help but wonder where he learned so much about ground combat, just before blinding blue light dominated her vision.

* * *

Blue light dominated Matt's vision as the high pitched whine of the transporter continued to fill his ears. Both the whine and the light slowly dissipated, Matt unconsciously holding his breath as his surroundings came into focus, simply hoping they weren't being aimed for already. As the dark room came completely into focus, it became clear that it was uninhabited, nothing more than a storage room, likely for weapons and rations. Although food was able to be produced by replicators, a small listening post like this one sacrificed having more than one replicator to have much lower power requirements, helping make the facility be that much more concealable. So having a large stockpile of food and weapons on hand helped broaden their options. Thus the reason they now found themselves in an over flowing storage room.

"Clear?" Matt whispered that one word, scanning his area of responsibility with his weapon. The group all echoed the quiet phrase, Matt relaxing slightly as the last of the group said it, but still kept his weapon shouldered and half raised, poised to snap up in a moments notice. "Alright, on me. Spence, take rear." Matt glanced back at them as he spoke, seeing them nod as he moved to the door. The others should be already stacking up behind him, just as they had drilled numerous times before. Matt tried stop his shivering, but found himself unable to. Great… not this again. It had been a long time since Matt had been scared of a fight. There was even a time in his life that fighting was all he did, never thinking about who lived or died. And though he had absolutely no fear of himself being hurt, he now had four people all under his command. All of which, were his responsibility to get them back to the Spirit alive. All of them had family to return to. Having lost his own, he never wanted anyone else to lose family members. The problem was, they were also facing living breathing people now. People who also had families and lives. His trembling intensified for a moment, just before he felt a hand on his shoulder. He nearly jumped, looking over his shoulder to find Kei's eyes locked on his. She simply nodded to him before grabbing her weapon again. The small and simple movement calmed him, letting him focus once more.

"Let's do this. remember, check your corners, and keep talking." Spencer's voice echoed slightly in the room. But it spurned Matt into action, hitting the door switch. The door slid open in an instant, Matt immediately through the doorway. It opened into a hallway, Matt heading right. Two Klingon technicians were working on what seemed to been blown electronics. One looked up, the fear on his face all to evident. It didn't last long, two fully automatic bursts being drilled into them from matt's rifle. Both collapsed, one of the them screaming as he lay there, still alive, but crippled. Almost simultaneously, a single blast echoed from behind Matt, likely Kei's weapon if they had breached the door correctly.

"One down, dead end left!" Kei's voice rang out, just as they had been drilling for years now.

"Ramp right! Two down!" Matt called that as he began moving, his weapon trained on the ramp at the end of the hall, leading up and to the right. He instantly began moving, pieing the corner for the ramp and clearing the entire ramp in one smooth motion. The others had already fallen in step with him, Kei and Catina taking the opposite side of the of the hall. Kei was watching forward and the right side, where Matt was watching forward and left, crossing their lines of fire and interlocking them. Spencer was immediately behind Matt, with Quinton immediately behind him. Quinton and Catina would be checking the rear, making sure the team didn't get flanked, while Spencer watched all of the team, in case one was struck down or to aid in firing on a target.

Not far up the ramp, there was a square landing and another hallway leading right. Matt stopped at the corner, nodding to Kei before he swung around the corner, dropping immediately to a crouch. Meanwhile, though he didn't see it, Kei had stepped out onto the landing, moving for it's back corner. Both of them opened fire immediately, at least three soldiers being down the hall, weapons at the ready. Several of them got shots off, but hit the walls and roof, no where near the two team members. "Clear! Keep moving!" he didn't hesitate in saying that. The group almost immediately returned to it's formation.

"Doorway right!" Kei called that from across the hall, just before several shots rang from her weapon. "at least two in the room! One hit!" she kept her weapon trained on the doorway as they crept forward.

"Spence, flash." Matt whispered that behind him, keeping his weapon trained on the edge of the door himself, waiting for one to try and step out. Spencer gave his shoulder a tap, letting him know the grenade was prepped. "Now!" Matt dropped to a knee again as Spencer threw a cylindrical grenade over him, and into the open doorway. There was a visible flash out of the room, as well as a concussive bang that rocked Matt's senses even through the metal walls. As soon as the grenade went off, he rushed in, hooking right just as always. There were at least five Klingons in the small barracks room, Matt dropping two on his side as Spencer dropped the other two. the fifth was already bleeding from the chest, likely just seconds away from death. Even so, Matt fired a single blast into the klingon's head, silencing him. "Clear!" as soon as he shouted that, he stepped out into the hallway, the group moving down the hall again. At the end, there was left hand turn, Matt able to see that it was actually just an alcove with a closed door. They wordlessly cleared it, Matt slapping his thigh twice, telling the team to stack up. One glance at the door panel's blinking red light showed it as being locked. He immediately dropped his pack, pulling a coil of high yield det cord from his pack.

The Det cord wasn't the same as typical det cord, which was a rope cord laced with explosives. This stuff looked like a string of soft sausage links, that were extremely malleable. That malleability meant it was easy to stick to anything. Including doors. It was also laced with thermite, giving it extreme heat and decent blast force. It took just a moment to mash the string onto the door in a rough person sized shape, a small det wire already stabbed into it. he backed off until he was out of the alcove the others remaining behind him as he slipped the physical safety off the small analogue clacker. As old school as the static clacker was, it was also impossible to jam or disrupt, making it his go to for explosives.

"Fire in the hole." Matt whispered that once before he squeezed the clacker three times in rapid succession. At the first clack, there was an incredibly loud whump. There wasn't even time for the smoke to begin to settle, and Matt was launching himself through the door.

* * *

Spencer leapt through the hole in the door, straight through smoke and debris, immediately hooking left upon entering. The room had at least a dozen or so Klingons split between two levels, an upper control area raised in the center of the room. Spencer opened fire up on the balcony, where at least three of the Klingons were, as he ran laterally, toward consoles on the left corner of the room. Matt was doing the same on his side, only he was firing on the Klingons under the platform. Kei and Catina came through the door and moved almost straight forward to a console between the door and the command area, with Quinton likely staying in the hall to watch their backs, so no enemies could move in behind them. By spreading out as they had, they took control over more ground, and made it that much harder for the Klingons to focus their firepower on them.

Several green disruptor rounds slammed into the console he had just slid behind, blasting the metal and electronics into hundreds of superheated shards, several of which burrowed into his bare skin. The pain from those small spots was intense, but not so much that he couldn't shove it aside as he exposed as little of himself as possible to fire. All four of them were unleashing the fully automatic fury of their weapons, quickly overwhelming and decimating the Klingons that had been in the room. The short and furious fight had left burns all over the walls and consoles in the room.

"Quinton, get in here, start downloading all of the data in their consoles, everyone else, defensive positions, prepare for a counterattack!" Hawkins had already trotted up the central stairs leading to the raised command section, Kei hot on his heels.

Spencer trotted out from where he was, taking up a position under the raised command area, using another console as cover.

"Spence, we got multiple warp out signatures. Several birds of prey, and at least two battle cruisers!" Rei's voice echoed into Spencer's earpiece, perfectly clear ad easy to understand.

"Quinton, how long!?" Spencer shouted that up toward the command area.

"Two minutes!"

As soon as Quinton had shouted back, Spencer was keying his comms device. "Two minutes Ninja, hold them off!"

"Mind your own words spence!" Hawk's voice caused him to look out at the room at large, seeing several red glows beginning to materialize, at least two dozen. "Start firing, now, before they finishing trans-ing!"

Spencer did as Hawk said, all of the group opening fire. The first few shots of theirs seemed to just pass through the energy fields, but as the bodies began materializing, the shots began stopping on them. by the time the Klingons finished transporting in, only three were still standing, the others all collapsing with various sized holes punched through them. Several looked un injured, but were screaming their heads off, likely only small percentages of their bodies blown away while they were materializing. those thee didn't last long though as Spencer quickly helped put them down. Green disruptor rounds started whipping through the hole in the door as well, only for Spencer to answer with several fully automatic bursts of his own. Between himself, Kei, Catina, and Hawk, nothing was coming through the door as the group continued to alternate their bursts, keeping an almost endless stream of shots passing through the hole.

"Keep em down for a minute! Quinton, tell me when your done, everyone get ready to bounce!" Spencer only heard Matt's shout, picking up his rate of fire to make up for his rifle no longer shooting.

"Were good to go!" Quinton's shout sent a wave of relief down Spencer's body as he fired another burst through the doorway, his weapon being unbearably hot.

"Spence get those transporters locked, I'll hold them back!" Matt shouted that just before he came thundering down the stairs, his assault pack unslung. He was one handing his weapon as Spencer activated a beacon on his wrist computer. Matt ran right up beside the door before tossing the bag through. Blue light began to invade Spencer's vision, all of his companions beginning to light up as the Spirit began to beam them aboard, just as Matt triggered a detonator in his hand. The ensuing explosion was lost on Spencer's ears as his vision was totally overwhelmed by the transporter.

As soon as he was back on the transporter pad, his eyes counted the people alongside him, breathing a sigh of relief when he realized no one was missing. "Matt, you are one crazy son of a bitch!" Spencer didn't give him a chance to respond, opening the intercom to the bridge. "Ninja, wash, peg that base and get us out of here! We're aboard!"

"No need for the rush captain! All enemy ships have been destroyed, no damage sustained. Base will be plastered in thirty seconds!"

Damn, I knew this ship was powerful, but I never thought it could decimate a force of that size…. Spencer shook his head as that thought crossed his mind, a slight echo reverberating through the ship as a torpedo was fired, Spencer knowing exactly where it was going. With that, he let out a relived sigh, doing his best to wipe sweat from his face. His entire body was trembling after that short yet intense fight, merely hoping no one noticed.

"Target destroyed. Order's captain?" Wash's voice echoed over the intercom this time, Spencer walking over to the ship's intercom system to respond this time, rather than his communicator.

"Plot a course for the nimbus system, dead slow. All hands, start running post combat checks, I want reports from section heads in the next twenty-four. Let's make sure our new girl doesn't have any bad quirks hiding in her hull, then get some rest! You all have earned it today!" he heard a few small hoots and hollers through the intercom, likely all members of the Gallant crew. That was when he turned to the away team, giving them all a smile. "You guys, don't worry about filing reports right now, just go get some rest. You can write up reports tomorrow." They all nodded to him, just before leaving the room, likely headed for their own cabins. Spencer let out a small sigh, giving the transporter tech a nod before he followed them, wanting to do nothing more than collapse onto his bed.


End file.
